


Super Legends

by SteveM



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23267059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteveM/pseuds/SteveM
Summary: Frustrated by the Time Bureau and down on crew following the departure of Firestorm Sara decides to ask a couple of friends for help.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Sara Lance, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For those looking to place this in continuity it essentially branches off just after Jax leaves the Waverider. Instead of Constantine waiting in the hold (how'd he get in there anyway?) Sara goes to bed and starts worrying about the Legends place in the Universe. The Supergirl cast are at a point shortly after Crisis on Earth X but also branch off here so Reign doesn't necessarily happen immediately after this story or in quite the same way. This is also very much standalone and doesn't touch any of my other series posted here.
> 
> Oh and while there's a little relationship work going on here it's a minor part of the story, sorry about that. Stay tuned for a much chunkier Kara / Sara fic in the next few days leading in, after far too long, to Supercorp proper!
> 
> Hope you enjoy, this was certainly an absolute blast to write (even if the characters aren't always quite on spec).

Waverider, Temporal Zone, Earth 1

Yawning and trying to rub the sleep from his eyes Nate Heywood shuffled his way onto the bridge of the Waverider. Behind him he could just about hear the grumbled complaints of Mick Rory stumbling his way out of his cabin, doubtless with a beer in hand. Which did at least mean Nate wouldn’t be the last to arrive. One look at their captain made him suddenly very glad of that fact.

“So, uh, what’s the emergency?” He asked, glancing around at his fellow Legends slumped in the comfy chairs in what he’d come to think of as the captain’s office at the back of the bridge. None of them looked particularly thrilled to be awake at what, for them anyway, was the middle of the night. Neither, rather worryingly, did any of them seem to have any more clue than he did about why they’d been called together.

“What sort of time do you call this?” Mick grumbled loudly as he finally joined the rest of the team. The glare he received in return seemed to be all the answer he was going to get so he settled for dropping roughly into the nearest chair and putting his feet up on the table.

“The Time Bureau….” Sara Lance said and it was clear from her tone that whatever fuse had been quietly burning down on this particular topic was currently millimetres away from the gunpowder. “We need to do something about the Time Bureau.”

“Umm… didn’t they just help us out?” Ray Palmer piped up, rather bravely in Nate’s opinion. The last time he’d seen Sara this angry around the team was when he’d tried to take her face while under the influence of some particularly potent herbal tea…

“No!” Sara snapped back but softened slightly at the hurt look on Ray’s face. “Well, okay, yes they did sort out the anachronism. But only after they got in our way!”

Ray looked like he wanted to say more but was saved from having to push his luck when the newest member of the team, Zari Tomaz, interjected. “Or we got in theirs….”.

There was a general holding of breath amongst the other legends and even Mick winced as they waited for the inevitable explosion. Zari hadn’t yet seen Sara in this mood and they were all absolutely sure that having a totem that controlled the wind wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough to prevent a trip to the medical bay. And, as it happened, they were all totally and completely wrong.

“Exactly.” Sara replied and everyone gaped in surprise. “We keep tripping over each other and it’s getting ridiculous!”

“Well we do keep trying to do their job for them…” Amaya Jiwe pointed out, her voice calm with no trace of the tension the rest of the team was feeling.

“Our job.” Ray interjected. “We’re the ones that broke time after all, our responsibility to fix it.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Sara said and she dropped into a chair, suddenly looking exhausted. “I keep going over what Rip said to me just before the Bureau took him away. He warned me we needed to be ready for Mallus, that we needed to be stronger. And now…”

She looked around the room and to Nate’s shock he saw her eyes grow wet with tears. “We’ve lost the Professor, Jax is gone and with them Firestorm. Rip’s in a cell at the Time Bureau, Snart’s hanging out in Star City… we’ve almost got more empty chairs than full ones at this point.” She angrily drew a hand across her face before continuing.

“And instead of getting on with the job we’re waisting time and effort trying to stay ahead of an agency with…. Gideon, run through the list would you?”

“Certainly Captain.” The Waverider’s AI replied in her usual cheerful tone. “Just before you, ah, borrowed the ship from them they had over a thousand agents, portal devices and communicators for all of them, eight large scale time portals, two time ships and the infrastructure to support them all.”

“So they’ve got better funding than we do, big deal.” Mick cut in. “Let’s just go rob a bank or ten to catch up.”

“That’s the point Mick, we shouldn’t need to catch up. This isn’t a contest, we should all be working together!” Sara replied. 

“Yeah but the Bureau sees us as a bunch of screw-ups and idiots they barely tolerate.” Nate reminded the group. “No way they’re going to work with us even if Agent Sharpe puts in a good word on our behalf.”

“I know.” Sara said quietly and something about her tone made sure she had the attention of everyone in the room. “Which is why we need to change their minds.”

“They’ve proven pretty determined to not do that.” Ray pointed out and Zari nodded agreement before adding “Plus they’ve got some pretty decent evidence that they’re kinda… right.”

“Only from their point of view.” Amaya replied. “The JSA didn’t exactly operate like a normal branch of the military but we could get things done no-one else could. I’m starting to think Rip had that in mind for the Legends.”

“But the only way we’re going to get them to see that is by proving that our way gets results instead of making things worse.” Sara said. “Now Gideon assures me that most of their technology is based on the Waverider so the only advantage they’ve got on that front is more people to scan the timeline for anachronisms. They can cover more ground but that’s fine, we want to concentrate on the really bad stuff anyway.”

“Well once they find one we know they do a lot of prep and recon work before taking action.” Ray pointed out, trying to work his way through the problem. “So even if we only identify it when they do we can probably make the first move.”

“The trick is making the right move.” Zari reminded him. “Especially when we’re short handed, makes it that much harder to gather intel quickly or come up with sound strategy.”

“Well I’ve got an idea on that one.” Sara assured her and, for the first time since the meeting had started, she smiled. “But before we get to that I wanted to put this to a vote. It’s going to take all of us pulling in the same direction to make this work so… what do you think?”

One by one the Legends nodded their agreement until only Mick remained unmoved. He swallowed down a deep draught of his beer then looked straight at Sara. “If it means proving we’re better than those stuck up idiots I’m in.”

“Okay, then let’s go on a recruiting drive!” Sara said with a far more cheerful tone. “Gideon, set a course for Central City 2017 please.”

S.T.A.R. Labs, Central City, 2017, Earth 1

Cisco Ramone, the resident mechanical genius of Team Flash and dimension-hopping superhero known as Vibe, was escorting the latest meta-human prisoner to their handy in-house jail when things took a distinct turn for the worse. One moment the man was in walking in front of him, hands bound and docile, the next he was somehow behind Cisco with his hands not only free but swinging at Cisco’s head. 

Cisco tried to duck out of the way but just didn’t have enough time. The best he could do was move his skull so the blow hit him hand on the shoulder but that was little comfort as a heavy kick landed in his ribs and sent him sideways into the pipework on the nearest wall. Seeing stars he tried to scramble back to his feet only for a vicious boot to drive the air from his lungs and leave him gasping on the floor. And then… there was an odd sound from somewhere behind him, as if something metallic was being swung quickly through the air. It was followed by a thud, a soft groan and a second much louder thud as the body of Cisco’s prisoner crashed to the ground beside him.

Turning painfully Cisco looked up to see his rescuer and was surprised to find it was a gorgeous blonde dressed in tight white leather with a bo staff slung casually over one shoulder.

“Hi Cisco, how’s things in Central City?” She asked, reaching down to help him off the floor.

“Uh… well, up until about thirty seconds ago absolutely fine.” He replied wincing as his body protested being vertical. “Thanks for the help Sara, fantastic timing by the way.”

“Well when you’re a time traveller it’d be rude to be late.” She replied with a smile. “Anything broken?”

“No, no I don’t think so. An industrial sized headache and a badly damaged pride but other than that I’ll live. Can you give me a hand getting him into the pipeline?”

“Sure.” Sara replied and helped Cisco lift up the dead weight of the prisoner and dump him into the waiting cell.

“What’s his power anyway?” Sara asked as the door closed and Cisco sent the cell humming away to its usual spot down the corridor.

“Teleportation. But, weirdly, only once per hour.”

“That’s definitely weird. So how did he get free?”

“Thought I had another five minutes to go. Barry’s suit must be out of whack. I took the time for his last teleport from that, can’t be synchronised with our systems properly. Thanks again for the help by the way.”

“No problem. Actually if you don’t mind I could do with you returning the favour.”

“Sure, what do you need?” Cisco said then spotted the look on Sara’s face and started to wish he’d asked that question before agreeing to help.

“Nothing much, just some help crossing the street…”

National City, 2017, Earth 38

“So tell me again how this was going to be an easy mission?” Supergirl asked, dodging an airborne BMW before punching the nearest skeletal robot into the roof 40 feet above her.

“Really, now is when you want to have this conversation?” Alex Danvers snapped back, pumping several shots from her alien handgun into a second robot. “Exposed core on your left.” 

Supergirl twisted and punched through the weakened armour to yank out the metal monster’s power core. It instantly started to heat up towards self destruction but that wasn’t really a problem for the Girl of Steel as she wrapped both hands around the wallet-sized cell until she felt the explosion tickle her palms.

“Come along you said. You can work off some stress you said.”

“Did I lie?”

“In and out in 20 minutes, no problems at all….”

“Okay, so I may have been a little optimistic.”

“A little? Oh, duck.”

Alex immediately dropped to a knee and felt the backwash as Supergirl’s heat vision burned over her head, a crump from behind her testifying to another downed robot.

“Thanks. What are you complaining about anyway, it’s not as if you had plans tonight.”

“I’ll have you know I had a hot date lined up!”

Alex leant to her right to fire around Supergirl while pondering that statement. “You ordered five alarm chilli from that takeout place on Sixth and Siegel again didn’t you?”

“No!” Supergirl drove her fist into and, as it turned out, through the grinning chrome skull of yet another robot before throwing the remains into what looked to be the last batch of reinforcements.

“You finally asked Lena out?”

There was a brief pause in the conversation then: “Alright, it’s the takeout option.” Supergirl admitted moving to stand beside Alex.

“Pity.” Alex said, and meant it. “Shall we end this?”

Supergirl glanced around and nodded. “On three?”

“Sounds good. One… two… three!”

Supergirl reached down to grab what turned out to be half a robot crawling towards them and smashed a hand down into its chest. Hurling the wreckage away she lobbed the already glowing power core at the last wave of enemies and turned towards Alex who already had her gun up and ready. A single blue bolt lanced out and hit the core dead on, rupturing the cell just as it dropped into the middle of their targets while Alex twisted around into a crouch.

Alex just had time to feel the very edge of the blastwave before Supergirl was wrapped around her, a combination of her body and cape protecting Alex from anything worse than ringing ears. As the fire faded the two women got up and surveyed the scene.

“That do it?” Alex asked casually, fairly sure they’d got them all.

“Yeah, I think so… oh, wait a second.” Supergirl vanished in a blur of red and blue to the other side of the warehouse and Alex heard a distant crunch followed a couple of seconds later by a very muffled crump.

“You done showing off?” She asked as the smiling blonde returned to her side.

“Hey you know the rules, you screw up I get to rub it in. Besides, you deserve it for that crack about Lena!”

“Oh come on Kara, how long are you going to keep pretending there’s nothing between you two?” Alex replied not bothering to hide her frustration.

“No idea what you mean.”

“Really? So you’ve never noticed her looking at you the way you look at an all you can eat dessert buffet?”

“Nope. All in your head.” Kara was blushing now but Alex wasn’t in the mood to let up.

‘That she can’t go more than a minute talking to you without biting her lip?”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“Or that she routinely checks out your ass when you’re not looking?”

“She does not!”

“Though I guess that’s only fair…”

“What, why?!?” Kara knew her response was too fast but she had a horrible feeling she knew what was coming…

“You do the same to her after all. And she doesn’t have X-Ray vision!”

“Alex!”

“Plus you do the lip bitting thing right back, can’t stop talking about her, rush headlong into lethal situations to save her faster than you do for me… which, by the way, noted…. bring her doughnuts at work, go on regular lunch and dinner dates, buy her flowers… do I need to go on?”

Kara opened her mouth to defend herself from her sister’s scandalous yet annoyingly accurate accusations and found herself grateful beyond words as a swirling portal popped open not ten yards away from them. 

“What the hell?” Alex snapped, drawing her sidearm again. Fire sprang into Kara’s eyes and they glowed red as the Danvers sisters waited for whatever was coming to put in an appearance. 

“Well glad to see that worked.” Sara Lance said as she stepped out of the dimensional breach. “Earth 38 on the first try, nice job Cisco.” She cast an amused glance at her welcoming committee and quirked an eyebrow. “Has anyone ever told you how hot you are when you’re working?”

Alex and Kara blinked then, somewhat embarrassed, both women relaxed and stepped forward to hug Sara. 

“Good to see you.” Kara said, wrapping the shorter woman in an embrace that Sara found herself wishing would go on for longer than it did.

“Same.” Alex echoed though her hug was a lot quicker and, if she was being honest with herself, a lot more awkward. Sara hid a sigh. She’d thought that things might still be a bit weird between them but had hoped otherwise. Ah well, she was sure it’d all work out in the end.

“So is this a social call?” Alex asked, still a little unsure of herself around Sara thanks to their previous… indiscretions. 

“Not entirely.” Sara confessed. “Do you have anywhere we can go to talk in private, a warehouse of wrecked robots isn’t really the ideal spot for this.”

“Sure, come back to my place.” Kara offered, a wicked idea hitting her that was in no way retribution for the Lena-related conversation. “Alex you can give her a ride, right?”

“You do remember I came on the bike?”

“It’s got a pillion seat.”

Alex glared at Kara but the far-too-innocent smile parked on Supergirl’s face easily deflected that look. “Yeah, sure… no spare helmet though, you okay with that?” She asked Sara, hoping for an easy out.

For a split second Sara was tempted to say no, if only because the alternative was likely to be getting carried by Kara which was certainly an appealing thought. But it was clear that Kara was trying to mess with her sister and who was Sara to object? Especially, she thought, if it meant getting close to Alex again and hopefully easing the tension between them.

“Yeah, no problem.” She said with a grin and Alex gave up.

“Okay, we’d better hit the road, takes about thirty minutes to get back to the city from here and that’s on a good day.”

“Great, see you there!” Supergirl said, shooting up into the air and vanishing out of what remained of a shattered skylight.

“Showoff.” Sara and Alex muttered in perfect unison. They looked at each other in surprise then Alex laughed as a genuine smile lit up her face. She walked over and gave Sara a proper hug. “Sorry, I really am happy to see you.”

“Glad to hear it!” Sara replied her eyes sparkling. “Going to make hanging on to you a lot less awkward.” Alex threw her an exasperated look but couldn’t quite keep the grin from her face as she did so…

By the time they’d negotiated their way through National City’s legendarily awful traffic to Kara’s apartment both women were more than ready for some time on a nice, comfortable couch. To their surprise there was a veritable smorgasbord of pizza waiting for them on the table.

"Expecting more company?" Alex asked, eyeing the mountain of boxes.

"Huh? Oh, no, there was a robbery going on at that Italian place over on the waterfront as I was coming back. The owner insisted on thanking me and... " Kara shrugged.

Alex put her growing hunger pains on hold for a moment to grab the fastest of fast showers while Sara and Kara caught up. Finally, when all three of them had settled down and were happily munching away Alex decided to raise the obvious question.

“So you wanted to ask us something?”

“Well… yeah. Actually I was hoping you’d help me out with a small problem.”

“Invasion?” Kara asked, looking vaguely hopeful. As awful as the last three she’d fought off had been they had at least given her a lot of targets on which to vent her frustrations.

“No. Well… not yet anyway.” Sara said. “This is going to sound odd but we have a bit of a, uh, trust issue.”

She quickly laid out the rather complicated situation between them and the Time Bureau and was grateful that her audience seemed to follow along easily. 

“Okay, so what exactly do you need from us?” Alex said, clearly intrigued. “I mean it’s not as if you’re short on heroes on your Earth to fill out the crew.”

“True but there’s a couple of reasons why that’s not really an option.” Sara replied, bracing herself for the sales pitch. “First, the Bureau will likely know and keep tabs on anyone from my universe that could help and I’d rather they not think we’re trying to do something behind their backs.”

“Which you technically are…” Kara pointed out.

“Only because they haven’t left us much of a choice.” Sara replied. “Besides it’s ultimately for their own good anyway, they’ll benefit as much as we will from ending this silly rivalry and working together.”

“Right…” Kara was clearly unconvinced but accepted the excuse. “And reason two?”

“You two are perfect for what we need.” Sara saw Alex blink at that and wondered if maybe the elder sister had gotten a bit too used to people needing Supergirls' help rather than hers. “Alex, you know far more than I do about tactical coordination and we desperately need some help in that area. Plus you kick unbelievable amounts of ass which is always handy with the way our missions tend to go. And Kara you’re… well, let’s say you’d increase our options considerably.”

“Well that’s certainly true.” Alex said with a proud smile. “A regular Swiss Army Knife of superheroes. One concern; this sounds like a long term engagement and we’ve got our own problem to deal with here.”

“Well it shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks with a bit of luck.” Sara replied having already considered this. “Plus we can always drop you off just after you left to make the dimension jump back here. As far as this world’s concerned it’ll be like you never left.”

“Hang on, I thought you couldn’t do that?” Kara asked, forehead creased in confusion.

“We can’t, you can.” Sara said and when it was obvious that hadn’t cleared anything up she sighed and elaborated. “We deliberately try to match up the time we’re actually away with the time we should be away. Helps keep everyone sane and avoids any accidental foreknowledge. For a single mission it shouldn’t be a problem and as you’re coming back to a different universe the ‘break the timeline’ worry doesn’t really apply.”

Alex looked at Kara and something complicated and unspoken passed between them. Sara suddenly found herself awash in sadness as the memory of Laurel flooded over her. Was this what they could have had if things had been different? If she hadn’t gotten on the Queen’s Gambit? If they’d made more of an effort to be there for each other rather than fight? As always when she had thoughts like this the terrible temptation to change history reared its ugly head. And as always she forced it away, trembling slightly with the effort. 

“So, uh, do you need some time to think about it?” she asked, trying to shake the painful memories from her mind. Another glance passed between the Danvers sisters and Kara made an ‘after you’ gesture to Alex.

“Who are we to refuse a Legend?”


	2. Chapter 2

Waverider, Temporal Zone, Earth 1

The dimensional portal slurped closed behind Sara and her two new recruits leaving them standing in the middle of the Waverider’s bridge. 

“If Cisco thinks he’s getting this back he’s got another thing coming…” Sara muttered, looking down at the small silver device he’d built for her. 

“They are cool aren’t they?” Kara said, knowing her own was sitting snug in the hidden pocket on her shoulder. 

Alex, meanwhile, was glancing around the bridge, taking everything in. It had only been a couple of weeks since she’d been here of course but with everyone so preoccupied with the loss of Professor Stein and the upcoming battle against a Nazi army from Earth X she hadn’t had much chance to check it out.

“Impressed?” Sara asked with a slightly smug smile.

“Eh, she’s not bad…” Alex replied and couldn’t help but laugh at the look of indignation on Sara’s face. “I work for an organisation specialising in alien tech, I’ve seen my share of spaceships over the years. Flown a couple too…”

Sara harrumphed and turned to Kara only to be met with an amused grin. 

“Don’t look at me.” Kara teased. “Alien, remember? We had the technology to build a pod not much bigger than an airplane bathroom that could cross the galaxy and kept me alive for over a quarter of a century in the phantom zone. This is cool and all but in the same way a Ford Model T is cool next to, uh, a fighter jet.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally.” Gideon interrupted, taking the effort to manifest her holographic head over the main console.

“Oh, sorry Gideon.” Kara stammered. “I… uh….”

“No apologies needed Kara, in a way it’s refreshing to not have people staring at me.”

Sara shook her head, this was getting a little weird. “So do you two want the tour or shall we get straight down to business?”

“Might as well get started.” Alex replied. “If you’re expecting me to handle strategy I kinda need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Not a problem.” Sara assured her. “Gideon can get you up to speed and Nate can fill you in on the anachronism side. In the meantime…” She pointed at Kara. “Can I borrow you Supergirl?”

“Uh, sure…” Kara replied throwing a confused look at Alex as she followed the White Canary into the depths of the ship.

“So where are we going?” Kara asked once they were out of earshot of the bridge.

“To the replicator, I thought a change of clothes might be a good idea.”

“A change of… what’s wrong with my suit?”

“Oh, nothing, but it’s a bit of a giveaway.” Sara said wondering how Kara would take the news. “Part of the point of this little adventure is to be as subtle as we can and after being a central part of fighting off two invasions anyone with access to military records is going to know what that S means.”

“It’s not an… oh, never mind.” Kara sighed. As much as she hated to admit it she could actually see the logic. “I take it you have something in mind?”

“Of course, what kind of host would I be if I hadn’t thought of that?”

“And, just out of curiosity, how long have you spent thinking about how you’d like to dress me up?”

Sara spluttered, caught off guard by the comment from sweet, innocent Kara Danvers. Before she could form a coherent sentence Kara cut her off with a gentle laugh. “Never mind, think you just answered the question.” Sara paused and indicated a doorway to their right and Kara accepted the invitation though as she walked in front of the still off-balance White Canary she couldn’t resist throwing a little more sway into her hips than absolutely necessary.

“Just stand in that circle please.” Sara said, wondering for a brief, fleeting moment what Alex’s response would be should she try to seduce the gorgeous blonde alien in the short skirt. Violent, she decided after a moments thought. Violent with an option on lethal. Instead she settled for enjoying the view as a blue light flicked on and played over Kara’s body.

“Uh…” 

“Relax, Gideon’s just getting your measurements. Need to make sure everything fits after all. Put your hands up would you?”

Kara obeyed, stretching her arms above her head and waiting as Sara walked around to face her from the opposite side of the replicator. “How long do you need me to do this?”

“Hmm? Oh, you don’t need to do that at all, I just wanted to see if you would.” Sara replied with a wicked smile, clearly enjoying the sight of Supergirl’s perfectly toned body on display for her. With a glare Kara let her arms fall promising herself she’d get Sara back for that one.

The light blinked off and Sara turned to punch in a set of instructions on the replicator. There was a brief hum and a neatly folded bundle of cloth appeared on the clear pad. Sara fished it out and placed it in Kara’s arms. “Hang on a sec while I do the rest.” She said and, another hum later, a pair of shiny black and red boots that looked to be a little taller than Kara’s normal choice in footwear were laid across the top of the bundle.

“There’s a changing room behind you.” Sara said and Kara turned her head to follow the pointed finger. “See what you think? Oh, and do me a favour, change like a normal human would you? Save the quick change trick for humiliating Ollie.”

Kara turned and slipped into the cubicle, oddly grateful that there was a proper door and not a salon-style half curtain that seemed to be the fashion in so many department stores these days. Behind her Sara started counting in her head and had reached thirty eight before the protest started.

“Sara! I’m not wearing this!”

“Problem?”

“You appear to have forgotten half the outfit!”

“Pretty sure I didn’t.”

“Then I’m assuming all our missions involve lounging on a beach somewhere?”

“Almost certainly not.”

“Then you definitely forgot something!”

Sara sighed. “Look just trust me, okay? At least put it on and come talk to me. If you don’t like it after we’re done talking we can find something else.”

There was an annoyed silence from behind the door and Sara felt the need to fill it. “Come on, the cape’s cool, right?”

More silence interrupted only by the soft rustle of fabric on fabric. “And you’ve got to admit the boots are pretty damn awesome.”

Another lengthy silence and Sara was just starting to worry she may have misjudged the situation when Kara finally replied. “Okay, we’ll talk but have Gideon warm up the replicator.”

The door clicked open and out walked a vision. Sara, who’d spent quite some time designing this particular costume, couldn’t resist a quiet “wow”.

The suit itself was, at a basic level, fairly similar to Kara’s regular Supergirl outfit. Long sleeves that wrapped around her hands and a single body piece covering her from hips to neck. It even extended further up than her usual costume with a tight black neck piece running up almost to her chin. The material was different though, an odd shiny mix of PVC and leather that somehow didn’t make a sound as Kara crossed her arms and glared at her friend. The black and red design seemed to fit her current mood, the angry blue eyes framed perfectly by the bright red domino mask that helped hide her face. A black cape with red lining hung down her back, longer than she was used to but it complemented the more severe look nicely.

The cause for Kara’s current annoyance was fairly obvious though and basically covered everything from the waist down. Or, to be more accurate, didn’t cover. Where her normal outfit had a short red skirt and heavy dark tights covering her modesty this one had… nothing. The body was cut almost like a swimsuit, exposing her legs all the way up to her hips with the material hugging the curve of her butt. The boots came up to her lower thigh but if anything that only seemed to highlight the extreme lack of clothing between there and her waist.

“No.” Kara said flatly as Sara opened her mouth. “No, I’m not wearing this. I look ridiculous.”

“You look like a total badass Kara!” Sara protested trying very hard not to stare. Or, worse, drool.

“Ridiculous.”

“Awesome.”

“Half-dressed.”

“Strategic.”

“Embar… wait, ‘strategic’?”

“Have you ever wondered why I tend to go for costumes that have a certain, uh, open theme to them?” Sara asked waving her hands in the general direction of her cleavage.

“To be honest, no.”

“Well you might want to start thinking about it.” Sara gently chided her friend. “You know me well enough by now to know it’s not going to be by accident. And oddly enough it’s not to flirt in the middle of a fight.”

“Okay so you’re saying it’s… it’s a strategic choice? Somehow?” Kara asked skeptically.

“Believe it or not, yes. I’m usually fighting people who are either stronger than me or outnumber me quite badly. Either way extra padding or even armour up there isn’t going to be much help. But you’d be amazed how much of an edge you can get when someone’s brain drops an unexpected moment of lust into the middle of a fight.”

Kara paused, clearly considering this. “Well…. okay, yes, I can see your point there. But, and don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t really need to find that edge. Any fight where I need an instant of distraction whoever I’m fighting is unlikely to be susceptible to a flash of skin.”

“In this case that’s not why you need the distraction.” Sara explained, hoping Kara wouldn’t just punch her through the hull and into the temporal zone for what she was about to say. “We’re going to be trying to sort out a bunch of anachronisms in a short space of time racing the Bureau every step of the way. When they start hearing about the super strong, super quick flying goddess we seem to have picked up from nowhere I’d much, much rather the reports they get back consist entirely of poetic ramblings of how awesome your legs are than detailed descriptions of your face.”

Kara paused, running the explanation through her head. “Okay… why do you not want them knowing who I am, exactly?”

“Because the whole point of the exercise is to get the Bureau to trust that we can offer them something they don’t already have and that we’ll deliver. If they figure out, I mean have definitive proof, that we’ve recruited Supergirl to prove that point they’ll likely attribute any success we have to you rather than the team.”

“But surely they’re going to know you’ve at least got extra help along for the ride?”

“That I can cover, especially if we can stay far enough ahead they don’t see everything we do.”

Once again Kara hesitated, considering the argument, then… “Oh alright, fine, we’ll give it a try.” A big grin broke out on Sara’s face and Kara raised a finger in warning. “But if I don’t like how things are going we’re changing it immediately, yes?”

“Yep, absolutely, 100%” Sara agreed then paused before adding. “You’ve got to admit it’s a cool look.”

Kara glanced back at her reflection in the mirror and gave an experimental flick of the cape. Then she lifted off the ground and spun slowly in place, paying attention to how the shiny material moved and flowed with her motion. She finished her spin facing Sara with her hands on her hips and, just for effect, let her eyes glow red. The moment of stunned awe from the assassin spoke volumes and Kara giggled as she landed on the deck.

“Yeah, it’s cool. One thing though.”

“Hmm?”

“Can we at least replicate some pants or a skirt for when Mick’s around?”

“That’s… actually a really good idea. Uh, do me one favour though.”

“What?”

“Show Alex the full thing before you go on a mission? I really don’t need her trying to shoot me for exploiting her little sister.”

“Good plan. Talking of which, we should probably see how she’s doing.”

To Sara’s surprise when they got back to the bridge Alex was deep in conversation with Gideon, an ever-changing network of temporal nodes on the screen in front of her. Nate was sitting off to the side at what she could only classify as a ‘respectful’ distance with a look of shellshocked awe on his face.

“What’s going on?” She asked quietly, crouching down next to the chair.

“Umm… well it’s fair to say she’s on top of things.” Nate replied then, a little belatedly, realised Sara probably wanted more details. He tilted his head towards the far side of the bridge and they casually wandered in that direction while Kara moved to stand behind Alex, a floor length black skirt adding to the modesty of her new outfit. Sara wondered briefly if Kara was aware she tended to put herself between Alex and the most obvious direction for any possible danger then dismissed the thought. Aware or not it wasn’t as if Kara usually had to worry about any potential risks of that strategy.

“So everything’s going well?” Sara asked once they were as far away as they could get without physically leaving the bridge.

“You might say that.” Nate paused, collecting his thoughts. “She picked up pretty much everything on time anachronisms in five minutes flat. And that's after Gideon briefed her on the crew, every weapon we've got on board and showed her the basics on how to fly."

Sara felt the grin spread but couldn't do much about it as all her self-control was devoted to not laughing at Nate’s bemused expression. "What can I say, I only recruit the best!" she said.

Nate glanced over his shoulder at Alex and Kara talking quietly in front of the screen. "Okay, you've got a point there but I thought she was just a field agent! Who... how...?" He trailed off, not quite knowing how to ask the question especially when he was painfully aware that Kara at least could hear every word he said.

Sara patted his arm reassuringly. "She's the second in command, and lead field agent, of an elite secret government organisation dedicated to protecting her Earth from extra-terrestrial threats." she explained as gently as she could. "PhD in bioengineering, a xenobiologist and neuroscientist with no superpowers who regularly goes into battle alongside Supergirl. Oh, and a Martian.” Without missing a beat she reached up and gently closed Nate's gaping jaw. 

"Basically she's awesome and just who we need to get ahead of the game." Sara concluded and over Nate's shoulder caught Kara turn just enough to flash a smile in their direction as she’d clearly heard the gushing praise for her sister. "Now if there's nothing else, let's go find ourselves an anachronism!"

London, June 28th 1968, Earth 1

“Okay, so one angry dinosaur stomping around Hyde Park in 1960’s London. Amaya, over to you.” Ray said enthusiastically. At the concerned looks from the rest of the Legends he smiled and explained: “I’ve seen her do this before, it’s really awesome.”

Amaya stepped forward and with a single tap of her totem a huge blue outline of a T-Rex appeared around her. The real dino looked over as if confused for a moment then roared and lowered its head.

“Uh, Amaya, what’s happening?” Ray asked, now somewhat concerned.

“She’s too angry. Too much pain…. I can’t get through to her!” Amaya replied, frustrated and worried in equal measure. 

As she spoke the T-Rex started to move towards them, accelerating surprisingly quickly for such a huge creature. “Amaya….” Sara said, eyeing their impending death as it quickly closed the gap.

“Run!” Amaya yelled and no-one needed telling twice. They split up, everyone heading out on their own to try and confuse the beast. Unfortunately it seemed this particular example was a bright one as it simply picked the nearest prey and kept on chasing. 

“Nate!” Sara yelled in warning as she risked a glance back over her shoulder and saw the huge teeth barely ten feet behind the man. The heads-up came just in time as she saw him realise he couldn’t outrun it and turn his skin to steel right as the jaws came down and lifted him off the ground. It hadn’t been a clean bite though and they could see his gleaming skin hanging out one side of the T-Rex’s mouth as he fought to avoid being swallowed.

“Kara, we need you!” Sara snapped and looked up to the sky. Sure enough she could just make out a distant dot circling the park which turned and streaked towards them, a black and red blur against the cloudy sky. Kara shot down and came to a halt barely inches from the creatures snout. Reaching out and being as gentle as she could in the circumstances she slowly but inexorably pushed its jaws apart until there was a big enough gap for Nate to slide out. As he fell she let the mouth snap closed and dropped down, scooping him out of the air and bringing him to a safe landing next to Amaya.

“Any ideas?” Kara asked the world in general.

“If we can calm her down I should be able to convince her to cooperate long enough to get her back to her proper time period.” Amaya replied, doubt etched in every syllable. 

“If we can’t you’ll have to try and knock her out Kara.” Alex’s voice came over the comm. “I don’t want to hurt her but we can’t risk leaving her in public any longer than necessary.”

Kara glanced around the park looking for inspiration. “Uh, Amaya… what would happen if we gave her some exercise?”

“I… have no idea.”

“Great… well, it’s worth a shot. Everyone stay clear for a minute.”

“Not a problem!” Zari called back somewhat sarcastically as Kara flew over to a small thicket of trees planted along one wall of the park. Carefully she yanked one free from the ground, turned and headed back towards the rampaging dinosaur. 

“Kara, what are you doing?” Sara asked.

“Well this worked on Krypto so… it’s just a matter of scale, right?” came the rather cryptic reply and Sara could only watch in a mixture of horror and awe as Kara flew within a few feet of the beast, took careful aim and booped it’s snout with the tree.

It wasn’t a hard hit but she hadn’t intended for it to be. Still, getting tapped on the nose by a tree wasn’t something that had happened to the T-Rex before and it turned, confused, to watch as the flying tree swayed back then darted forward to once again tap its snout.

“This cannot be a good idea…” Sara muttered. “Amaya?”

“Let her try Sara…” The reply was calm, as Amaya tended to be in all but the worst situations and Sara forced herself to follow her example. By now Kara had hit it at least half a dozen times and it was clear Rexy was starting to get fed up. A final tap and it roared, lunging forward towards the tree.

Kara was ready for it though and was already accelerating and taking the tree with her. Being careful not to get too far ahead she stated flying lazy figure eight loops around the park, making sure to keep away from anyone still on the ground. The Legends regrouped, staring in amazement at the sight of a T-Rex chasing a flying tree held by an alien. 

“No-one’s ever gonna believe this….” Zari muttered and Sara was forced to agree. The T-Rex looked like it was starting to slow down a little so Kara gave it one more gentle boop and, as soon as it roared, took aim and lobbed the tree into a large clear area in the middle of the park. The animal thundered towards it and started savaging its tormentor as it lay helpless on the ground at its feet. Kara, meanwhile, glided silently down besides Amaya.

“Want to try that whole communing with nature bit again?” She asked and Amaya gave her a quick smile before summoning the essence of a dinosaur for the second time that day. This time the response was immediate and much more docile. “Okay Ray, hit her.” Amaya said and with a carefully calibrated shot from his Atom suit Ray shrunk the T-Rex down to around six foot tall.

“Mission accomplished.” Sara reported over her earpiece. “Bring the Waverider in Alex. Mick, get busy zapping people with that memory wiper.” As the ship slid down to a gentle landing Amaya rested a hand on the newly miniaturised T-Rex and guided her up the cargo ramp, Kara following a few feet behind in case anything went wrong. Ray and Zari picked up Nate and Sara so they could fly up and use the top hatch rather than have to risk annoying the dinosaur with unnecessary distractions. A few minutes later, and one return trip from Ray to pick up Mick, the only sign there’d ever been a dinosaur in the 1960’s was a few odd shapes in the turf and a shredded tree lying on the ground a few hundred yards from where it should have been.

In the cargo hold of the Waverider the T-Rex was seemingly happily lying down in one corner, Kara alongside it absentmindedly patting the back of its head and neck. Amaya, still concentrating on maintaining her connection, was about halfway down the bay keeping a safe distance in case things went south in a hurry. 

“So who was Krypto?” Amaya asked to break the silence.

“Hmm, oh he was my uncle’s pet back on Krypton.”

“An alien pet… well I guess that makes sense.” Amaya mused. “What was he like?”

“Well, uh, pretty similar to a dog I guess. A bit bigger the average earth mutt maybe.”

Amaya smiled. “No, what was he *like*?” She asked again with an emphasis on the last word.

“Oh! Sorry, force of habit. Uh, sweet for the most part and very protective of his family. Always liked me and the moment Kal was born he refused to sleep anywhere but by his crib. Lot of energy though and if Jor got caught up and couldn’t walk him he’d get a little wild.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Let me guess, you’d take him out and play with him until he got some of that energy out, calmed down a bit?”

Kara smiled at the memory. “Yeah. Whenever he’d had enough he’d just run over and settle down beside me, perfectly happy to watch the world go by.” A sudden shadow passed over her face. “I miss him.”

Kara shook herself out of the momentary funk and glanced over at her scaly new friend. “But I’ve got to admit getting to play fetch with a 30 foot tall dinosaur wasn’t something I thought I’d tick off the bucket list.”

“Bucket… list?” 

“Oh, sorry. It’s a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Uh, die.”

Not for the first time Amaya considered the future to be a very weird place but kept that opinion to herself. “In your case I imagine that’s a pretty unique list.”

Kara laughed and nodded. “It’s certainly difficult to bring most of it up on a date, that’s for sure.”

A gentle thud rocked the ship and Alex’s voice came on the intercom. “Okay, we’re back in the cretaceous period and there doesn’t seem to be any local wildlife around. Ray, Amaya, Kara… let’s get her home.”

The cargo hold opened and a warm, organic but welcoming smell rolled over them. Rexy immediately put her head up and got to her feet making it simple for Amaya to lead her out and back into her world. Kara stayed by her side, one hand resting gently on the creatures back in case she decided to run off before they could finish the job. 

Once they were about half a mile from the ship Amaya stopped and after a quick check of the surrounding area nodded to Ray who was keeping pace about twenty feet above them. “Okay, this should do. Just get the power right, last thing we need is a hundred foot tall T-Rex!”

Ray laughed, double checking the settings on his suit. “Don’t worry, I give you a no-Godzilla guarantee.”

“Godzilla?” Amaya asked, confused.

“Never mind. I’ll add it to our next movie night. Everyone ready?”

Kara took a few strides away from the beast and threw Ray a thumbs up sign. Taking careful aim he sent a bolt of blue energy crackling down dead on target. There was a surprised roar, a very busy moment and then a full size T-Rex was staring down at the flying man in the armoured suit. Immediately Kara was in front of Ray, eyes locked as best she could on those of the creature before her. Slowly, carefully, she reached out and rested the palm of her hand on the top of its snout. For a long moment no-one moved or even dared to breathe. Then the Rex gently lowered its head, turned and lumbered off towards a distant tree line, the setting sun turning her into a silhouette as the three time travellers watched her go.

Time Bureau HQ, Star City, 2017, Earth 1

Deep in the heart of an anonymous office building somewhere in Star City the Time Bureau was hard at work. Retrieval teams researched their target, active missions came and went through white glowing time portals, equipment technicians poured over new versions of the Bureau’s standard load outs and at his monitoring station Agent Gary Green happily poured over the latest timeline data looking for new Anachronisms.

It wasn’t the most glamorous job in the Bureau, in fact it was unofficially considered punishment detail by most agents who would far rather be doing the job they signed up for in the field than riding a desk. Gary, however, had had his fill of field work. Ever since he’d first run into the Legends that side of the job had become a lot more dangerous. Retrieving a regular frat boy instead of Julius Caesar from 2017 Aruba had been embarrassing enough but being captured by them when tasked with following them to 1870 Wisconsin had been more than slightly terrifying. The end had come when he’d run into them again in 2042 Seattle after they’d intercepted his distress call. Officially he’d requested the desk job after becoming convinced the Legends were going to screw up history even worse than they already had. Unofficially he’d seen the look on Sara Lance’s face after he’d alerted the Bureau to their actions and was fairly sure if he ran into her again without backup she’d kill him slowly. Possibly with a spoon.

He frowned as an alert pinged up on his screen and he quickly scanned through the temporal data for its source. Hyde Park, London, 1968… that was going to be a fairly interesting trip for someone he thought as he started to log details of the alert. However no sooner had he filled out the basic details of the Anachronism on the digital report the screen flickered, shifted… and the Anachronism had vanished. Slowly at first then with increasing urgency he checked the data starting with the date, time and location he’d seen then expanding his search out in both directions along the timeline for anything unusual. After almost an hour of searching he’d reassured himself he hadn’t done anything wrong and requested a senior agent come to his workstation to discuss the problem.

His heart sank when he saw Ava Sharpe walk into the room. Blonde, smart, gorgeous and with Rip Hunter behind bars the most experienced field agent the Bureau had she intimidated the hell out of Gary. If he was being completely honest he’d admit she reminded him of Ms Lance in many ways, though with ambition and aloofness replacing the cold steel that he’d seen in the Legend’s captain. 

“What is it Agent Green?” Ava asked, standing a little too close for comfort.

“Uh… I, umm, I found something odd. I think, anyway.”

“Odd? You better have a little more to go on than that.”

“Uh, yes… yes Ma’am.” He quickly explained about the vanishing Anachronism and the work he’d done to backtrack it.

“What did you find? I’m assuming you did find something?” Again that cold attitude cranked up his nervousness but he braced himself and dove in.

“Not much but yeah. Uh, I mean, yes, Ma’am, I did. Find something that is.” He quickly pulled up a photograph. “This tree was found in the middle of the park on Friday, June 28th 1986.”

“A tree?” Ava’s voice was flat and Gary gulped before carrying on.

“Y..yes. It delayed the concert the next day by a couple of hours while they were removing it, that’s why it’s in the record. No-one knows how it got there, a few hundred yards from where it should have been. There wasn’t any bad weather and it wasn’t cut down either. From what I can see it looks like it was almost.. pulled out of the ground, roots and all.”

Ava was looking skeptical and he rushed on. “I did a search for anything unusual around that time in the press or media.”

Ava glanced at the information on the screen and snorted. “And you found a lot I see. Melting scenery, out of body experiences, music becoming solid… it’s almost like it was a concert in the 1960’s with Pink Floyd headlining and, let’s see, oh, Tyrannosaurus Rex as a support act.”

“It did make it tricky but this one stands out.” Gary highlighted one article and clicked it up to full screen. Ava scanned it quickly, muttering to herself.

“A big creature of some sort that… ah, that shrunk down and flew away. Oh, the tree flew as well. And what’s this: “the most beautiful legs I ever saw”.” She sighed and looked down at Agent Green with what, for her, passed as sympathy. “Why does this one, in particular, stand out? Other than the legs of course.”

“Well it was reported the day before the concert Ma’am. And the man writing it swore there was something odd in the air as he didn’t use drugs but couldn’t quite seem to remember things clearly.”

Ava’s eyes narrowed. “A mind wipe on low power might have similar effects if someone was trying to remember what happened… Do we have any units unaccounted for?”

“Only the one assigned to Director Hunter Ma’am and he said that had been destroyed.”

“Hmm…” Agent Sharpe paused for a moment, clearly running something through her mind. “If you see anything else odd happen let me know at once. No need to back check it. Oh, and the same goes for any high level anachronism that comes across the board.”

She turned on her heel and headed for Director Bennett’s office. There wasn’t much to go on but something about this didn’t feel quite right…


	3. Chapter 3

Washington DC, August 8th 1925, Earth 1

Everywhere Sara looked people were running as fast as they could away from Pennsylvania Avenue. Well, no she corrected herself, not everywhere. If she looked up the Avenue towards the Capitol building there were a great many figures not running but marching slowly down the street. All of them were armed, and that in and of itself would have been enough of an anachronism to worry her as the guns were very clearly M16A1’s that shouldn’t even be invented for another four decades. Far more pressing as far as the Legends were concerned though was that beneath the white robes and pointed hoods not all of the faces were human. Some were a disturbing mix of flesh and steel, cybernetic skulls looming underneath their human disguises. Others seemed half finished with long snouts or razor-sharp teeth that would be more at home in the depths of the ocean than walking down the nation’s capitol.

“Are you sure we can’t just roast ‘em all?” Mick called from where he was fighting hand to hand with a group of six Klansmen off to her right.

“Not unless you’re 100% sure they’re not human.” She replied, racing forward to nail the largest of the group with a side kick to the gut that left him doubled over gasping until her fist put him down for the count.

“We have to count these scumbags as human?” Mick asked, clearly disappointed.

“Sadly, yes.” Sara admitted, somewhat grudgingly as she sent her bo staff spinning into the side of a conveniently placed head to knock another one cold. She heard a thud from behind her and spun to see Mick on the ground, blood oozing from a gash on his temple and dripping from the knuckles of the man who’d knocked him down. She made to join the fight only for a hand to land on her left shoulder. 

“Mick, catch!” She yelled and sent the staff arching through the air to land perfectly in Mick’s waiting hand. She just had time to see him start bringing it scything through the air before the hand on her shoulder spun her around and she found herself facing a nightmare in steel. A metal human skull with what looked like an Alsatian’s snout and teeth grafted in place, small red glowing eyes burning with hatred. Its hands were suddenly around her throat and squeezing with terrifying strength.

She lashed out with her hands and feet, striking anywhere that looked potentially weak on the creatures torso but while it seemed to be flesh there was no sign any of her blows caused it the slightest bit of discomfort. She was starting to fade, red and black spots flooding her vision, and in desperation she grabbed its wrists and fell backwards, her feet coming up to push into its stomach. Caught off balance they fell together, Sara pushing with all of her might to come up on top straddling the monster.

Even then she couldn’t break free. Its grip was like iron, fingers interlocking around her neck. Her eyes started to roll back with the lack of oxygen and through the mists that threatened to envelop her she saw something black and orange sailing through the sky towards her. Slowly, as if in a dream, she raised her right hand and by a miracle the object slapped sweetly into her palm. Bringing it down, pointing it right at that nightmare face she pulled the trigger and a jet of napalm roared out. The creature screamed, an unearthly mix of human pain and electronic noise and the pressure at her throat vanished. She rolled clear, keeping the trigger down, keeping the fire pouring on to the beast until it twitched one last time then lay still.

Staggering to her feet she saw two more of the misshapen soldiers rushing in and without hesitation turned them both into funeral pyres. They kept rushing on towards her even so and she backed away, never once letting the fire waver from her targets. As they finally tumbled she bumped into something and spun to find herself face to face with Mick, her usually shinny bo staff dripping blood as he had it raised almost like a baseball bat.

“Thanks…” She said, passing the heat gun back to him and accepting her own weapon in return.

“No problem, sorry if I bent your stick.” Mick rumbled. “Looks like we’re winning at least.”

Surprised Sara looked around them and had to agree. Most of the white clothed figures were lying on the ground while the rest were in full retreat back in the direction of the Capitol building. She raised a hand to her ear and triggered her comm unit.

“Ray, can you do a quick flyby, make sure there’s nothing retreating that isn’t human?”

“Can do, just give me a minute.” Came the eager response and she saw the Atom take to the skies from where he’d been fighting on their right flank. While she waited for the report she quickly picked out Zari, Nate and Amaya from where they’d been holding the line and, with the exception of what looked like a long but shallow gash on Zari’s right thigh, everyone seemed to be okay.

“Confirmed Captain, only regular human racists making a run for it.” Ray reported and Sara breathed a sign of relief. She’d been half a heartbeat away from calling in the reinforcements but the team didn’t need to know that. As far as they were concerned they’d handled this unexpected invasion all on their own, a nice confidence booster especially without Firestorm.

Almost as soon as she’d let the thought form there was a rumble from beneath her boots and a deep thrum ripped the air. Turning as one the whole team stared in shock as a giant metal sphere rose into the air behind and just to the left of the Capitol building. Pulsing blue engines shook the world as it started to turn and move away.

“Oh no you don’t….” Sara growled. “Alex, whatever’s controlling these things is trying to make a break for it, can you intercept?”

There was a burst of static back from the comm as the glow from the sphere’s engines shifted to a deep purple and it accelerated rapidly towards the east. The Legends could do nothing but watch as it shrank from view. Without warning there was a roar of noise and wind from behind them and they spun to see the Waverider racing by barely a hundred foot up, banking to skirt the dome of the Capitol Building as it threw itself into the pursuit.

“Gideon, how are we doing?” Alex called, grateful that Time Master design seemed to place a premium on being user friendly.

“All weapons and defensive systems engaged, we should overtake the target in less than a minute.” The A.I. cheerfully informed her and while Alex didn’t have much experience at dealing with her she’d swear there was a note of excitement in that digital voice.

“Can you scan them, see if there’s anything nasty pointing in our general direction?”

“Doing so now… no weapons that I can detect but… there’s a section of the ship opening up.”

“How big?” Alex asked then took a closer look out of the viewport. “Never mind, I see it.” It looked like the entire equator of the sphere had split and out of it something was flying back towards them. No, she corrected herself, make that a lot of things.

“Missiles?” Alex asked, her fingers poised over the controls for an evasive pattern.

“No… fighter ships!” Gideon replied as her sensor data coalesced into something useful. “They appear to be unmanned drones.” A green bolt of energy shot by the window as they quickly closed the gap to the Waverider. “And they’re definitely armed!”

“That’s okay.” Alex said confidently. “We’ve got that covered.”

The first wave of ships was almost on top of the timeship when two blue beams lanced upwards from a spot just behind the bridge. They sliced neatly through the lead ship then with inhuman precision did the same thing to the other five ships in the formation. Alex took a moment to key an external camera looking back down the length of the Waverider and couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

There, standing on top of a time travelling spaceship moving at several hundred miles an hour as easily as if it were parked on solid ground, was Supergirl. The wind sent her cape streaming backwards, fanning out behind her with the trailing edges moving so quickly they cracked like whips in the gale. After a moment’s thought Alex hit another control and a small red light blinked on to confirm she was recording the shot, after all how often were they going to get to do something like this?

“Everything alright?” Kara’s voice came through the bridge speaker.

“Yep. I’ve got the big one if you can clear the road.”

“On it.” Supergirl replied and on the screen Alex saw her sister lift casually from the surface of the ship, then bank quickly off to the right. Taking a deep breath Alex refocused herself and gave the weapons systems one last check.

“Ready Gideon?”

“Absolutely… Captain.” Gideon replied and the Waverider darted forward into battle.

While relatively small for a timeship she was still a big target and Alex winced as she saw the multiple waves of fighters lining up for attack runs. She threw her ship into a tight corkscrew, always keeping the nose pointed towards the escaping sphere as she tried to be as random in her movements as possible. 

Then, suddenly, there was another shape twisting and dancing alongside, matching the big ship’s movements precisely. Alex caught a glimpse of red and black as Supergirl shot by the bridge, heat vision stabbing out over and over again, every shot tearing apart one more obstacle between them and their target. The part of Alex that was always watching and analysing couldn’t help but marvel at Kara’s skill, her delicacy and speed coupled with that unmatched power so carefully controlled.

The enemy fighters broke away from their assault, circling tightly to cluster together in a new formation, weapons ports angled to cover as much of the sky as possible.

“Alex, when I say so, head for the sphere!” Kara’s voice echoed on the bridge and Alex would swear her sister was having the time of her life.

“Ready.” She confirmed, trying to split her attention between the controls, scanners and the view out of the window. For a moment she couldn’t spot Supergirl anywhere then a new dot appeared at the far edge of the Waverider’s scanning range. It closed the distance with terrifying speed and she flew so close to the ship Alex would swear she heard the edge of her cape flutter against the glass.

“Now!” Kara called as, fist extended, she dove headfirst into the heart of the fighters. They tried their best to shoot her as she angled in but she was moving so quickly their tracking systems just couldn’t keep up. One burst grazed her arm but she easily corrected course and simply flew straight through the first ship before landing on the second and kicking down hard enough to snap it in two.

As Kara busied herself turning the fighter screen into scrap Alex was being pressed back into her seat as the inertia field was overwhelmed by the acceleration of the ship. In a few seconds she was past the growing cloud of scrap metal that had been trying to protect the mothership and her fingers flew over the controls, locking the weapons on to their target.

“Gideon, can you calculate time on target for all weapons?” She called.

“Certainly Captain, ready to fire on your orders.”

The sphere loomed ever closer and Alex eyed it warily. If there were any more surprises this would likely be when they were sprung. But no, it simply hung in the sky, trying its best to run away but she couldn’t let that happen. With no indication of where this thing had even come from and plentiful evidence of the chaos it could wreak the Legends had no choice but to stop it for good.

“Gideon, fire now!” Alex commanded quietly. The Waverider bucked as its weapon array barked once, twice, three times, every shot in each barrage timed to arrive simultaneously. The first salvo blasted a hole in the hanger door, the second and third slipped easily through the gap and devastated the insides of the ship. It rocked in the air, small explosions bursting through the metal plates as Alex looped up and away from the doomed sphere. Gideon helpfully switched a screen to a reverse camera angle and Alex saw their target list to port, its engines flickering weakly for a few seconds before a final, colossal explosion consumed the ship and sent what was left spiralling down to the waters of the Atlantic far below.

Alex wasted no time and set course back for where she’d last seen Supergirl. To her complete lack of surprise she found her sister floating serenely in midair, though oddly she seemed to be inspecting a chunk of metal from one of the fighters she’d shredded. Keying open the cargo bay door Alex set a course back to Washington and let Gideon take over so she could go meet Kara as she entered the ship.

“Souvenir?” Alex asked as Supergirl absentmindedly closed the hatch, still focused on the metal plate.

“No, at least I don’t think so. This seemed like it might be useful so I grabbed it.” She handed the shrapnel over and Alex could just make out faded lettering stencilled in black against the silver surface.

“Holographic Analytical Reciprocating Digital Android Computer.” She read. “Well that’s a mouthful, doesn’t even abbreviate well. Ever heard of it?”

“No, you?”

“Not ringing a bell, though with a name like that maybe it’s not surprising. We’ll have Gideon take a look, see if it matches anything in her records. In the meantime if you’re feeling up to it I suspect we’ve got a fairly big clean up waiting back in Washington…” 

Time Bureau HQ, Star City, 2017, Earth 1

“You’re sure this time?” Director Bennett asked, his usually reserved manner cracking slightly.

“Yes sir.” Gary replied, his voice shaking slightly from nerves. “We definitely picked up an Anachronism in 1925 centred around the KKK march in Washington. Level 10!”

“Agent Sharpe, ready a go team. Agent Green, start recon on the target and”

“Uh…” Gary said, cutting across the Director with a worried glance at Ava. “It’s dropping in severity sir. Now a level 8.”

“What?”

“Level 6… 3… 1…. it’s gone sir.”

“What do you mean, gone?” The Director asked in a cold, quiet voice.

“I mean it’s… gone. The Anachronism doesn’t exist any more. Everything as it should be.”

“That’s a shame…” Ava muttered under her breath and Director Bennett turned to face her.

“And what exactly do you mean by that Agent Sharpe?”

“Nothing sir.”

“That was a very odd ‘nothing’…”

“Only…”

“Yes?”

With a sigh Ava straightened and looked the older man directly in the eyes. “Only that, while we’ll always correct any anachronism, it’s a shame that particular event had to happen for history to stay its course. Sir.”

Director Bennett paused before replying. “Unfortunately Agent Sharpe our mission is to protect history, not shape it.” He took two quick steps towards her and lowered his voice. “Though off the record in this particular case I happen to agree. But sometimes we need to go through the darkness to come out on the other side stronger.”

Ava gave a small nod. “Understood sir.” She murmured and she’d swear, just for a second, she saw the ghost of a smile on the Directors’ face.


	4. Chapter 4

Waverider, Temporal Zone, Earth 1

“Oh that can’t be good…” Alex muttered to herself as the display in front of her flashed up the latest anachronism. “Gideon can you put me through to Sara please?”

“Yeah?’ Sara sounded groggy and Alex winced.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Just a bit.” Sara replied with more than a hint of sarcasm. 

“Think I’ve got something here you’re going to want to see.”

“Okay, be there in five.” Sara grunted killing the transmission and reaching for her closet.

“So what’s so important it can’t wait until morning?” Sara grumbled as she walked on to the bridge but one look at the worry on Alex’s face was enough to set off her alarm bells. 

“We picked up another anachronism and… it’s a bad one Sara.”

“Worse than a T-Rex in 1960’s London or robots invading Washington?”

“Yeah, it’s… well see for yourself.”

Alex brought up the relevant record on the screen and Sara felt her heart freeze. 2012, Starling City and a very familiar name. Felicity Smoak.

“What the hell…” She breathed sending a sidelong glance at Alex. “Any details?”

“Not much and none of it good. Felicity left work on Friday January 6th 2012 but never made it home. Her body was found beneath an overpass two days later. And…” Alex hesitated but there was no point in hiding things now. “And she was killed with an arrow through the heart.”

Sara’s eyes narrowed and her voice became deadly. “Do you have any pictures of the arrow?”

“One from the police evidence record. They never found the killer.” On screen a very familiar looking arrow with a green head and fletchings appeared, the smooth metal stained red where it had… Sara cut off that particular thought and fought to stay calm.

“Without Felicity what happens to the timeline?”

“Oliver gets shot and bleeds out less than a year into the job. The police find his body still in the Hood’s outfit so they can link everything back to him. As a result Barry doesn’t have anyone to help train him and is killed by a speedster. Starling City dissolves into chaos, huge numbers of casualties including… including your family. And you…. you never leave the League.” Alex trailed off and wrapped the shorter woman up in an embrace. The look in her eyes at the news of her family had worried the DEO agent, she’d never seen Sara Lance that vulnerable, that broken before.

“So we need to make sure that Felicity survives.” Sara said and Alex breathed a sigh of relief at hearing the familiar steel behind the words. “We could stake out her route, try and stop whoever’s planning on kidnapping her.”

“We could but I’m not sure that’s the way to go.” Alex replied, picking her words carefully. “Whoever did or… does this… I guess? Sorry, right tense for time travel always throws me off.” Sara smiled despite herself even though she was almost certain Alex was doing the adorably awkward thing deliberately to cheer her up. “Anyway, whoever’s planing this is clearly a pro, they snatch her from the middle of the city and no-one notices? No clues on the body to lead to an arrest, no sign on CCTV… If we go with a stake out we might just scare them off and then they’ll try again when we’re not around.”

“So what are you suggesting, that we use Felicity as bait?”

“No… and then again yes.” Alex had an odd smile that Sara couldn’t quite place but had her worried for some reason.

Starling City, January 6th 2012, Earth 1

A few hours later both women walked in to the front door of Queen Consolidated and, after a brief conversation with the security guard, headed down to the IT offices. They both wore tailored black suits and very serious expressions to go with their very serious, and totally fabricated, FBI ID’s. 

“Ms Smoak?” Sara asked spotting the familiar blonde ponytail from the doorway.

“Huh?” Felicity clearly hadn’t been expecting visitors and it took her a moment to adjust.

“Agents Danvers and Henshaw” Sara said, flashing her badge. “Can you come with us please, we need to talk to you?”

“Uh…. sure.” Felicity said, trying to lock her computer as subtly as possible. Sara pushed down a smile, she’d forgotten how bad Felicity had been at the whole subterfuge thing back then. Or was that back now...

They took over a small meeting room down the hall with Alex positioning herself by the door to keep an eye on the corridor.

“I’m afraid there’s no easy way to say this Ms Smoak but we think someone’s trying to kill you.” Sara said, as reassuringly as possible under the circumstances.

“Me? But… why? I haven’t done, I mean, I’m not important or anything.”

“We’re not sure yet.” Sara lied, making a mental note to discuss self-confidence with Felicity the next time she saw her in the proper timeline. “Our investigations are still ongoing but we’ve reason to believe that they may try and kidnap you tonight.”

Felicity went very pale as the reality of the situation set in. Sara rushed on with the cover story they’d concocted. “We have an operation planned to catch them but we need your help.”

Felicity looked at her, eyes wide as dinner plates but despite clearly being terrified she nodded. “What… what can I do?” And Sara thought to herself that even now, before she’d met Oliver and gone through hell a couple of times over, Felicity Smoak was an awful lot braver than she gave herself credit for.

“Two things. First can you help us map out the route you’d take to go home tonight?” A nod was all the confirmation Sara got and she carried on. “Second we need to take you to a safe house for a day or two for your protection. We’ll need to get in touch with anyone who might miss you in that time to make sure they don’t file a police report.”

“Okay.” Felicity said in a small voice, still clearly coming to terms with someone wishing to take her life. “Whatever you need.”

Rob and Joe were not, on the whole, the best criminals in Starling city. They considered themselves a cut above the rank and file but in truth it was a pretty thin cut. However they did have a reputation for being reliable provided there wasn’t too much improvisation required and had been more than happy to take on a simple kidnapping job for a mysterious client.

“You ready?” Joe asked keeping one eye the drivers mirror to sweep the street behind them.

“Yeah, just like the last ten times you asked!” Rob growled flexing his hands. He’d always been the more physical of the two and considered their current target beneath him. Still, money was money and business was business he thought. “You know he said she’d be here at 6:25.”

“Yeah but who’s going to plan something down that precisely… Son of a bitch.” Joe breathed as their target walked into view just as the digital clock in the dashboard blipped on to 6:25 precisely. He double-checked the photograph they’d been given and there was no doubt in his mind. Blonde, pretty, glasses and even wearing the same clothes from the picture. “Okay, this is starting to get creepy. Come on, let’s go grab her, get paid and get gone.”

The two men waited until the blonde had walked past then slipped out of the car and wandered after her. There was no rush, no need to spook the girl they thought. They knew precisely where she was going after all, this was a routine walk home for her and sure enough they saw her take a left turn into an alleyway as a cut through to avoid the entertainment district up ahead.

They followed her and started to close the gap. For big men they moved very quietly and it wasn’t until they were a half dozen yards away that their prey realised anything was wrong. The first time she glanced back they broke into a dead sprint, Rob tackling the woman to the ground before she could go more than a couple of steps. Joe pulled a ball gag from his pocket and forced it into her protesting mouth, buckling it tightly just beneath her ponytail. A rough hood was next and he dropped it neatly over her struggling head, pulling the cord tight around her throat. Rob scooped her up in his arms and carried her to a nondescript door halfway down the alley. A complicated knock rang out, the metal door slammed open and the two criminals slipped inside, their prize secured.

Neither of them looked back and certainly neither of them looked up to spot the two deep shadows watching them from a rooftop.

Rob and Joe dropped down through a well-concealed trap door and into a rough tunnel running gently downwards. Following the instructions they’d each memorised earlier that day they made their way quietly and invisibly beneath the city until finally emerging into a disused warehouse several miles from where they’d snagged their target. The girl had stopped struggling a mile or two back and offered no resistance as they dropped her into a waiting wooden chair and secured her wrists and ankles with steel shackles.

“Well done gentlemen.” A voice called from the shadows and a single light flickered on, illuminating a large duffle bag on a nearby table. “Payment in full, as discussed. If you go back in the tunnel and follow it for another ten minutes it’ll bring you out somewhere where you can discreetly blend back into the population.”

The two career criminals didn’t hang around, grabbing the bag and making their way out of the waiting door. In this particular instance they were willing to take the payment on trust as what they’d heard about their client didn’t encourage them to question his orders. Once they were safely away there was the quiet crunch of footsteps on debris-laden concrete and a figure appeared from the shadows. Dressed in layers of dark cloth, a quiver over his back and several armoured plates covering his left shoulder and side he was an imposing sight though as far as Felicity was concerned she could see nothing but the blackness inside the hood.

“Welcome Ms Smoak. My name’s Malcolm Merlyn and I’m truly sorry for what has to happen next.” The voice was smooth, charming and as sincere as a politician at a press conference. “Unfortunately it’s come to my attention that you present a danger to my plans and so…” He trailed off and could just make out the muffled mews of protest that escaped both the hood and gag as Felicity shook her head desperately.

“I know you don’t understand why. I wonder if that makes it better or worse.” He mused reaching over his shoulder for the arrow he’d been…. gifted. “But sadly it doesn’t make much difference now.” He notched the arrow and pulled back the bow… just in time for two figures to drop from a catwalk above him to land ten feet away. One in white, a bo staff in hand and a murderous look in her eyes. The other in black with a handgun drawn on him and an expression that wasn’t much softer than her companion.

“That’s enough Merlyn.” The blonde growled and he was surprised to hear such hate directed at him from a stranger. Which had to mean…

“Ah, I’m assuming that you’re, what was it now… ah yes, the ‘Legends’?”.

“Good guess, especially for something you shouldn’t know about. Who’s helping you?”

“Just an old friend who dropped by for a helpful chat over a good scotch.” Merlyn smirked, the bow still pointed at Felicity. “And they pointed out that just as your little blonde friend there is crucial to the timeline…so am I. You daren’t touch me in case you change something. I, on the other hand…”

The arrow flew. It leapt from the bow and covered the distance between Malcolm and Felicity in the blink of an eye and buried itself in her chest, directly into her heart. There was a muffled gasp, a spasm and her head lolled forward as Felicity Smoak died.

“No!” Sara yelled and went to race forward, determined to shuffle loose Malcolm Merlyn from the mortal coil, timeline be damned. But he already had a second arrow ready to fly and this one was pointed not at Sara but at Alex.

“Now now, let’s play nice.” He chided. “What’s done is done and I’d hate for more bodies to hit the floor unnecessarily.” He smirked as he watched Sara and Alex fume, knowing he had them both dead to rights. And then… then he wrinkled his nose as a faint burning smell reached him. He threw a hard glance at both women but they didn’t seem to be causing it and the scent was stronger to his left. He half turned, the bow still aimed at Alex… and his jaw dropped open.

The hood over Felicity’s head was on fire, seemingly burning from a point right in front of her eyes. The arrow still hung tangled in her clothing but even as he watched her fingers flexed and her head came up. Somehow through the flames and what remained of the hood she seemed to be staring right at him. He took a careful step back and her head turned, following his every move. Her arms flexed and she stood up in one smooth, effortless motion. The shackles exploded and mixed with the splintering chair as both steel and wood tore as easily as tissue paper. A hand reached up and ripped the hood away revealing somehow, impossibly, a face untouched by the flames that had embraced it.

Thoroughly unnerved Malcolm swung the bow around to cover the new threat but suddenly the woman was right in front of him, her bare hands bending the metal bow back on itself until it shattered. She wrapped her fingers around his throat and he found himself lifted up, clawing at the vice like grip as he tried to steal a breath. Then he was flying across the room, smashing through a pile of old, rotted wooden pallets to lie winded and helpless on the ground. 

“Nice work.” Sara said, stepping smartly to the side of the impossible woman that was still glaring daggers at Malcolm. “You alright?”

With an annoyed grunt the woman reached up and unbuckled the ball gag, spitting it out with a disgusted look. “Fine but what about him?”

“We’ll hit him with this.” The brunette said, pulling what looked like a fancy flashlight from a storage pouch. “It’ll erase any memory of future knowledge or what he’s seen today. Basically his own personal reset button.”

“So he won’t remember any of this?” The still-smouldering blonde asked, a dangerous edge to her voice. 

“No.”

“Good… then let’s really give him something to worry about when he comes round.” she stalked over to his helpless body and put a foot on his chest. He groaned, feeling the dreadful pressure pinning him to the concrete.

“You’re going to regret kidnapping and attempting to murder an unarmed, defenceless woman…” She promised and held up the ball gag. “You should be glad I’m one of the good guys otherwise I’d dry this off first…”

The high pitched scream that echoed through the warehouse almost made the whole ordeal worth it…

Waverider, Temporal Zone

Just over an hour later all three women were sitting in Sara’s quarters. Or, to be more accurate, Sara and Alex were sitting on the bed while Kara ‘sat’ in midair owing to the lack of a chair. They’d let Nate know the coast was clear and he’d escorted Felicity back to her home. They’d all showered and changed into something more comfortable, though Kara had spent some time repeatedly washing her hands at super-speed just to be safe. She’d also quickly replicated the sweater and blouse Felicity had leant her as a disguise for Amaya to return as the originals had a rather large arrow-related hole in them along with some interesting stains from the underground trek.

“So we fixed the anachronism?” Kara asked, taking a sip from a mug of hot chocolate and sighing happily.

“Yep, all back to normal. Felicity is once again alive and well as part of Team Arrow and keeping Oliver on the straight and narrow.” Sara said, leaning over to clank her beer bottle against Alex’s in a toast. “Job well done.”

“Uh, Kara…” Alex said, clearly struggling with putting whatever was bothering her into words. “That ballgag, I’ve got to ask…”

“Fun if you trust your partner but get the size right or your jaw starts aching and drooling can be a bit of a problem.”

“WHAT!”

“Kidding, kidding. You mean why did I, uh…”

“Yes, that.”

“As far as he knew he killed Felicity. Timeline or not there should be some payback for that. And if he’s walking funny for a few weeks so much the better. Besides I left enough of the strap free so he could pull it out.”

“Considering that bastard killed me I’ve got no problem with that.” Sara put in and at their quizzical looks added: “Oh, long story. Short version: I was killed, I got better. The point being I only wish you’d dried it off first, maybe found some essence of ghost pepper to enhance the experience…” Both Kara and Alex winced at the thought but Sara seemed to be enjoying the mental picture. Or maybe it was just the memory of that scream…

“It really is ridiculous how alike you and Felicity look with a couple of styling tweaks.” Alex offered up as a way to change the topic.

“Eh, I think it’s just the sight of a pretty blonde in glasses and a short skirt.” Sara interjected. “If the basic details are right something short circuits and they just assume it’s the person they’re after.”

“Oh, talking of which…” Alex cut in, turning slightly to address Kara directly. “You might want to consider avoiding skirts that short around Lena, at least if you don’t want her to just jump you there and then.”

“Alex!” Kara looked mortified but Sara was already grinning from ear to ear.

“Ooh, and who’s Lena?” She asked with a wicked purr.

Kara blushed red and shook her head but Alex was more than happy to spill the beans. “Lena Luthor. Billionaire CEO, genius, surprisingly badass and stunningly gorgeous. In fact here…” She pulled out her phone and flicked through the photo album until she found a selfie she’d taken with Lena at a recent girl’s night out.

Sara whistled appreciatively. “Oh this is just unfair. Superpowers, gorgeous, an awesome sister and you’re dating her!?!”

“I’m not dating anyone!” Kara cut in quickly, now so red Alex was surprised she didn’t spontaneously de-power herself.

“That’s true.” Alex confirmed and let the words hang there for a second before continuing. “Though god knows why not.”

“Not this again…” Kara grumbled, trying to hide her embarrassment.

“Not what again?” Sara asked, clearly enjoying herself but Kara just shook her head.

“Kara swears blind they’re just good friends.” Alex explained. 

“And you think otherwise?”

“Me, James, Winn, J’onn, anyone with eyes…”

“Wait a sec, J’onn thinks so too?!” Kara cut in, clearly mortified.

“And he’s telepathic so…”

“Ah-ha! No, he can’t read Kryptonian minds so, so there!” 

“Hmm, wow that’s a good point, something I’d never considered until this very moment.” Alex replied deadpan, sarcasm dripping from every word. “You do know he’s met Lena, right?”

“Yeah…”

“And reading human minds is no problem at all?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with… Alex!” The look of indignation on the Kryptonians’ face was priceless and Sara lost her fight to stifle her laughter. Kara turning that expression on her didn’t help any and it took a minute or two until the time travelling assassin could manage complete sentences.

“Sorry, I’m sorry Kara but Alex is right.” Sara chuckled, still holding her stomach where it hurt from laughing.

“How can you say that, you’ve never even met her!”

“No but I’ve met you and I’ve never seen you that offended on someone else’s behalf before.”

“I, that’s not… I mean, Lena’s not like that and and and it’s wrong to talk about someone behind their back. Especially about something like this!”

“Well I can think of one way to solve this argument.” Sara said, a gleam in her eye that Alex knew meant trouble.

“Oh really, and what’s that?” Kara replied, trying to take the moral high ground.

“Kiss her, see what happens.”

“SARA!”

“What? The direct approach always seems to work well in my experience.”

“She’s got a point there Kara.” Alex said with a look towards Sara that spoke volumes where she’d intended a synopsis. 

“I beg you not to share details.” Kara grumbled. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you two had a good time at the wedding but there are some things I’d prefer to not know about my big sister.”

Sara opened her mouth to reply then paused, clearly considering her options. She glanced at Alex and with a wicked smile leant over and gently dragged her fingertips over the gorgeous DEO agents’ ear lobe and down her neck to her collar bone. Instantly Alex shivered, her eyes fluttering closed and the tiniest moan escaped her lips. No more really than a slightly energetic breath but to Kara’s hearing it may as well have been a scream of delight echoing around the rooftops.

“Fair enough.” Sara said, sitting back as if nothing had happened. “But if you don’t want to try the fun option I’ve got another suggestion.”

“What? And if it’s any variation on ‘sleep with her’ I swear I’m freezing you to that bed until the morning.”

“No, nothing like that. Although now that you mention it…”

“Sara…” 

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Besides I was going to say how about inviting her over for a night out with the three of us when this is all over? Let me judge for myself?”

“I… okay, fine. But you’ll see we’re just friends.” Kara said, letting her legs unfold until she was standing on the deck. “And on that note, I’m going to go grab some sleep. And maybe wash my hands a couple dozen more times.”

“Okay, goodnight Supergirl.”

To Alex and Sara’s credit they both waited until the door closed and they heard the light footsteps dwindle into the distance. Then they looked at each other and Alex raised an eyebrow. “Twenty bucks says you think she’s gay by the end of the night, at least for Lena Luthor.”

“Like I’m going to take that bet Danvers. Anyone that gets that flustered about a gorgeous woman potentially being into her while claiming to be straight is just fooling themselves.”

“Oh you wait until you see them in person.” Alex said with a smirk. “Honestly, I keep expecting to see rainbows overhead whenever they’re in the same room...”

Time Bureau HQ, Star City, 2017

Agent Green felt like his eyelids were made of lead as he stared at his screen. He’d been up for twenty eight hours straight trying to track down anything that might help him find out what on earth was going on and getting nowhere. At somewhere close to four in the morning he was the only one on duty in the situation room and the silence and darkness was beginning to get to him. A sudden and unexpected yawn caught him off guard and he felt his head bob down…

No, he thought with a start, the last thing he could do was fall asleep at his desk! Reluctantly he stood up, stretched for a moment then shuffled out to the canteen for a fresh cup of coffee. The moment the door clicked closed behind him an alert popped up on his screen. An Anachronism in Starling City in the year 2012, level 9. Unfortunately by the time he’d found a milk cartoon that didn’t smell like it had come from the industrial revolution the Anachronism had dwindled and faded back into the pages of history and other than a brief hospital record referring to a John Doe needing a round item removed from somewhere it definitely shouldn’t have been there was no sign it had ever existed.


	5. Chapter 5

Waverider, Temporal Zone

“What, exactly, is Pontarfynach?” Sara asked noticing the odd word that was tagged to the event marker.

“Name of the place we’re going Cap.” Nate replied, but his usual enthusiasm seemed forced. “Roughly translated… Devil’s Bridge.”

“So what, exactly, are we dealing with here?” Sara asked, trying to ignore the pounding in her head. Being flung into a corridor wall from the force of the time quake this particular anachronism had cause hadn’t done anything to improve her mood.

“To be honest there’s some guesswork involved.” Nate admitted looking sheepish. “When we start looking this far back we’re out of the realm of proper historical records and into mythology. The anachronism is focused on a small region in what will become Great Britain, Wales specifically. According to legend there was a place where the human world met the land of the demons separated by a fast river running through a gorge. Then, one day, a crossing was built by someone under the influence of the devil and all the evil in that world could enter ours and destroy it. Which… is precisely what happened. Gideon can’t find, well, anything out there. Just a blasted, ruined world. No sign of life at all.”

“When you say no sign…” Amaya asked, her voice trailing off as she couldn’t bring herself to ask the question.

“Nothing. No people, no animals, no plants, nothing bigger than a microbe.” Nate said solemnly. 

“Well that makes our decision simple.” Sara said. “Gideon set course for Wales, 657AD.” She walked over to Alex and lowered her voice. “Any thoughts?”

“Same as yours I bet.”

“That we’ve got no way of knowing what we’re dealing with so everyone goes loaded for bear?”

“Exactly.” Alex gave her a tight smile but couldn’t hide the worry in her eyes. “Sorry, demons are a new one on me.”

“Not to me.” Sara replied and shook her head at Alex’s raised eyebrow. “I’ll tell you about it later once this is over. Just… let everyone know if they are demons then kill shots are perfectly acceptable.”

Devils Bridge, Wales, 657

An hour later the Legends were moving cautiously through a forest already grown thick with age. Sara and Alex were on point with Mick, Zari, Nate and Amaya fanned out behind them. Ray was bringing up the rear using his suit sensors to make sure nothing snuck up on them while Kara flew overwatch above the trees. For the last ten minutes or so the sound of roaring water had been growing louder and as Sara reached the edge of the tree line she held up a hand to stop their advance.

The entire group stared at the sight that met their eyes. Before them the Welsh hills rose and fell creating deep valleys shrouded in shadow and carpeted in unspoiled green. The forest seemed to stretch to the edge of the world and to their right a narrow gorge gave birth to a tumbling cascade of water that battered the rocks far below before speeding off towards the sea in the west. 

“I’m assuming that’s what we’re here to see?” Sara asked Nate, nodding at a rough stone archway connecting the two sides of the gorge.

“I assume so.” 

“Okay. Kara, Ray, any sign of trouble?”

“Not a peep Captain”

“Nothing that I can see from up here. Although…”

“What is it Kara?” Alex asked quickly. She knew that tone and it rarely meant anything good.

“I’m not seeing much of anything. No wildlife at all. Isn’t that a bit weird somewhere like this?”

“Yeah, it is.” Alex confirmed throwing a quick look at Sara who shrugged in response. “Nothing we can do about it now, let’s go have a look at that bridge.”

“Well… that’s not right.” Ray said a few minutes later echoing what was going through the minds of the rest of the team. In front of them was a simple stone bridge, more or less what you’d expect from a primitive civilisation though still impressive nonetheless. However at the far end where the bridge met the bank several metallic boxes were clearly visible. 

“Any idea what they are?” Sara asked.

“Uh…. no. Suit can’t see through them to get an internal scan and I’m not familiar with the technology.” Ray admitted. 

“Well if haircut can’t science his way through what about skirt’s all-powerful peepers?” Mick asked with a grin that had Alex instinctively balling her hands into fists. With a sigh Kara floated down beside him and put one hand on his shoulder.

“First, I asked you not to call me that.” She squeezed slightly and Mick grunted at the almost but not quite painful unbreakable grip that held him. “Second it’s not even accurate in this getup.” She applied a little downward pressure and Mick staggered, finding himself having to lock his legs just to stay upright. “Third, I don’t use my powers for… for what you’re implying.” She gave him a sideways glance and finally let go. “And fourth yes I can and… hmm.”

There was silence for a moment then Kara reached up and slipped Cisco’s dimension portal gadget from the hidden pocket on her shoulder. She gave it a quick glance and looked up in shock. “Uh, guys, I think I know what they are!”

And then, suddenly, it was too late for discussion, too late for plans, too late to do anything but get ready for a fight. There was a burst of energy and a blue field rippled out from the boxes, quickly solidifying into a rippling dimensional portal far bigger than the small one or two person breaches they were used to seeing from Cisco. Through it poured dozens, no hundreds of creatures that none of the Legends had ever seen or even dreamt of before.

Six foot tall, covered in an odd shimmering metal that gleamed a dull green in the sunlight and each with four wings sticking out of their backs they were a terrifying sight. What little could be seen of their faces was grey and cracked looking more like a skull than a face. Their hands curled into talons and their eyes were hidden behind thick yellow lens. Some held blades in one hand, others had what looked like odd firearms carried like rifles and all of them, every last one, was screeching something Sara couldn’t quite make out but she thought started with ‘Dark’.

“Ray, Kara take out the ones carrying guns and try to keep them all grounded!” Alex called, already working to assess and manage the situation. “Zari, Mick, try to contain the flanks, keep them penned in as they leave that portal. Everyone else on to the bridge, we’ve got to stop them reaching open ground!”

Every team member immediately jumped into their assigned roles, familiar with their own skills and trusting their teammates to have their backs. The bridge itself was suddenly wreathed in flames on the right while a hurricane ravaged the left. Enraged screams ripped through the peaceful valley below as demons fell burning to the ground or were dashed into the rocks to fall into the torrent below. 

Those that took to the air faired little better as photon blasts hammered them back into the midst of their fellows or bursts of heat vision tore them apart. Everyone had been briefed on what these things had planned and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind on seeing the massed army pouring through the portal that this was kill or be killed. The few that slipped by the long range attacks and headed for open sky suddenly found themselves grabbed and thrown as missiles into the next wave by a red and black blur holding an invisible line against them.

On the ground things were rapidly becoming a lot more complicated. The bridge was wide enough for five or six of the things to advance at once which left Alex, Sara, Nate and Amaya busier than they’d like. Nate and Amaya, both making full use of their powers, took the left and right sides hitting as hard and as often as they could. Sara had swapped out her usual bo staff for two short black swords which danced and whirled through the air so quickly they seemed to blur. By her side Alex was picking off targets with her energy pistol, trying to keep the immediate area around the two women as clear as possible while occasionally punching anything that got a little too close.

Five minutes passed, then ten and still the creatures kept coming. The portal side of the bridge was littered with bodies but the next wave pushed them out of the way into the raging river or simply climbed over the top to get to the Legends. Seconds felt like minutes as the heroes started to tire and more than once they faltered only for the rest of the team to see their predicament and lend a hand. 

“We can’t keep this up forever!” Mick yelled, his heat gun almost glowing in his hand from the effort of continuous firing. 

“We don’t have to!” Sara replied as she drove a blade through an unprotected throat and yanked it free just in time to meet an armoured claw heading for her face. “We’ve just got to do it longer than they’ve got reinforcements.”

“Great, any idea when that might be?” Grunted Nate who, even with his steel skin, was starting to feel the effects of so many blows to his head.

“Not precisely, no.” Sara admitted ducking as she saw Alex whip around and aim her gun seemingly straight at Sara’s face. The flash of energy was close enough for her to feel the heat and the chocked squark of surprise behind her told her just how close that one had been. But Alex had left herself open to take the shot and before Sara could react a demon reared up behind Alex and slashed its claws down towards her throat.

Alex caught the movement from the corner of her eye and twisted desperately, bringing her right arm up to ward off the blow. The claws bit deep into her flesh and raked down, opening up four ugly wounds in her side and sending her to the floor. Even as she fell she spun, landing on her back, gun still steady in her left hand as she fired off a shot straight into the creature’s snarling mouth. As it fell back to the ground Sara was already on comms.

“Alex is hit, we need an evac!”

“Sara, we can’t hold this position!” Amaya called and a quick glance was all Sara needed to confirm that assessment. With Alex down they were left with only close quarters weapons and the wall of enemies was already noticeably thicker. She heard a grunt from Zari and risked a glance over her left shoulder to see her down on one knee, the effort of using her totem for so long clearly starting to overwhelm her. 

“Nate, take Alex. Everyone fall back to the ship!” Sara called and was grateful that no-one argued. “Ray, Kara, can you bottleneck that portal a bit, buy us some time?” The immediate hail of energy from the skies above was all the answer she needed. “Okay, everyone move, now!” 

No-one needed any encouragement and they took off, Nate cradling Alex in his arms. Something sparked overhead and Ray’s muffled shout left no doubt that he’d been hit. He dropped to the ground heavily in front of them, smoke billowing from the left leg of the suit as he joined in the retreat. They had reached the edge of the thicker forest when Alex managed to look back over Nate’s shoulder and cried in alarm. “Sara!”

They all stopped dead and turned in horror to see a lone figure in white still standing on the bridge. The crackling energy bursts had faded and a fresh wave of armoured figures were already piling out to join the attack. “I said get to the ship!” Sara’s voice came over the comm. “I’ll buy you the time to get there.”

And then… it was too late. The creatures charged and Sara Lance set her feet, blades at the ready. To her surprise she found herself at peace with her decision, at least her death would mean something, give the rest of her crew time to find another way to fix this mess. The first wave was almost on her now, their fetid breath on her face as she swung for the closest, downing it with a single stroke before twisting around to send both blades through the chest of the next. Five, ten, twenty fell and she felt like she was flying. Everything she’d learnt, everything she’d trained for, experienced and endured coming down to this one moment.

But it couldn’t last and even as she sliced clean through one neck she saw her death loom up beside her. The creature already had a hand raised, a blade of its own gleaming in the crisp light. Sara saw it start to fall and in one last act of defiance watched her death approach rather than close her eyes. 

It stopped. Three inches from her face the blade stopped dead, a bare hand wrapped around it with no apparent ill effects. The fingers squeezed and the blade shattered, a red and black blur moved beside Sara and what was left of the beast was thrown back into the advancing tide. 

“Did you really think you’d have to do this alone?” Supergirl asked. 

For an instant all Sara could do was stare then, without words, the two women turned as one to face armageddon. 

The rest of the Legends were still frozen where they’d stopped. The initial horror was quickly fading to be replaced with awe. Two figures, one in white one in black and red, carved a path of destruction through the assembled hordes. Blue beams sliced through anything incautious enough to stand in front of them, black blades spun and glittered as body after body fell. Demons looked like they were flying away only for the onlookers to realise the flight was involuntary as they shattered against the steep rock walls of the gorge.

Back and back they were pushed until the fight was at the very edge of the portal itself. Then they saw Sara dive to the ground behind Kara, her swords dropping next to her as she clamped her hands over her ears. Kara faced the portal and brought her hands together with a speed and force that defied belief. The shockwave tore out around her, tearing into the forest and pounding the portal which wavered, twisted… and vanished. The control boxes exploded and only Supergirl’s own body protected Sara, a sheltered port in the maelstrom.

The echoes of the shockwave faded away and the Legends stared in disbelief across the gorge as Supergirl glided toward them, the White Canary held snugly in her arms.

“She’s okay.” Kara said as soon as she noticed them looking. “Unconscious but I can’t see any damage, must just be overloaded from the pressure wave. We need to get her back to the ship for Gideon to check though. You too Alex!”

“We’ll handle the cleanup.” Mick rumbled and for once the concern was clear in his voice. As he, Zari and Amaya headed back to the bridge they all failed to see a pair of wide but human eyes peering through a hedgerow a little upstream. Nor did they hear the muffled prayer as the hidden monk tried to memorise everything he’d just seen…

Time Bureau HQ, Star City, 2017

“Tell me you’ve got something better than a drug-fuelled hallucination this time?” Ava asked wearily as she ran her eye over the screen.

“I think so.” Gary stammered, his nerves completely shot after almost two weeks of chasing phantom Anachronisms around the time stream. 

“Pon.. ponta… pontar…” Ava tried to wrap her head and brain around the odd word and gave up at the sight of an f and y next to each other letting her eye skip on to the translation. “Devil’s Bridge… sounds dramatic.”

“It’s a Welsh legend.” Gary explained and hesitated before barrelling on. “Only I think it’s changed.”

“Changed?”

“We picked up an Anachronism there, a full level 10. I was researching it and came across this, well, legend about it being a doorway between our world and somewhere else.”

“Let me guess… the anachronism sorted itself out again?”

Gary nodded sheepishly. “But I still had this text open and when I read it again…. it had changed. At least I think it did, I didn’t remember reading the second part and I’m sure I’d finished it the first time through.”

Ava considered that for a moment. “Okay, let’s see it then.” Gary obediently brought up the relevant text on screen and Ava quickly read through it.

“And the door opened and demons walked the world only to be met by warriors from Heaven. The ground shook as the battle raged until one by one the warriors fell or retreated. Finally only the white angel stood alone to guard the bridge. For every demon she killed two more took its place until the ground was black with their bodies and their army blocked the sun. Then, as they overwhelmed her, the devil appeared by her side breathing fire and together they fought back the demons and closed the door forever.”

Ava re-read the text and felt a lot of pieces click together in her mind. “An angel in white tearing apart demons?” She muttered. “Well that’d fit with Sara if this is the Legends. What about the devil though? If Firestorm was still… “ She trailed off, not willing to finish the thought. 

“Gary… good job on this.” She said, reaching her decision. “Can you package up everything you’ve got and send it over to me? I need to speak to Director Bennett.”

Five minutes later Ava found herself in the very unusual position, at least for her, of having to defend the Legends.

“I know it sounds…. unlikely sir but I believe the Legends are responsible for these anachronisms being fixed so quickly.”

“Unlikely? Try impossible Agent Sharpe!” The Director snapped. “Even if that were possible, and I’m not convinced it is, there’s almost no collateral damage. No witnesses. If I was grading these as missions in the simulator they’d be top 1% and I think we can both agree that is not an assessment that’d ever be made about the Legends!”

“As far as we know sir.” Ava replied, bracing herself. 

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve been doing this for a few months now and have worked with us on more than one occasion, albeit reluctantly. If they have access to the same tools we do then they could, potentially, achieve these results.”

Director Bennett paused for a moment, slightly stunned to hear a strong defence coming from Agent Sharpe. “Do you seriously believe that?’

“I… I do sir. After working with them directly on the Bebo incident I’ve seen how effective they can be under the right circumstances.”

“I see. In that case, Agent Sharpe, kindly contact Ms Lance and find out the truth of the matter.”

“Yes sir.” Ava turned to leave then paused with a hand on the door handle. “If it turns out they have been doing this… what then?”

Director Bennett sighed. “Then you will have a very difficult job to do Ava.”


	6. Chapter 6

Waverider, Temporal Zone

Two hours later Alex gingerly made her way onto the bridge of the Waverider, still sore from the blow to her side but with the wounds themselves healed thanks to Gideon. 

“I’m officially jealous of your med bay.” She called out to Sara who was curled in the pilots’ seat staring out at the green maelstrom of the Temporal Zone. “That’d come in handy back at the DEO.”

Sara laughed and nodded agreement as she eased herself upright. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Gideon’s brought me back from several near-death experiences. One actual death as well.”

“Just how many times have you died anyway?” Alex asked with a skeptical look.

“Depends how you’re counting. Actual deaths, two. Add on reported deaths and it’s at least four. Five if you include redundant timelines.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope.”

“So… what, you’ve got a super healing factor? Clone army? Deal with the devil?”

“Normal human, one of me is quite enough and he’d be too scared to make any sort of deal.” Sara replied with a smirk. “Guess I’m just that good.”

“Oh really?” Alex laughed. “You wouldn’t say, oh I don’t know, that luck had anything to do with your continued resurrection?”

“Hmm…” Sara paused, considering the idea. “Nope. All skill, no luck.”

“You know what I really like about you?” Alex said as she moved to stand almost nose to nose with the shorter woman.

“My effortless charm?”

“No…” Alex slid her arms around Sara’s shoulders, hands gently laced together behind the assassin’s neck.

“That I look really good in leather?”

“Not quite, though, fair point.”

“This?” Sara raised her right hand, index, middle and ring fingers twisting around each other in a corkscrew motion that left Alex with a suddenly dry mouth and a flashback that she tried very hard to ignore.

“Your unrelenting modesty.” Alex replied and in a lightning quick move hooked her leg around Sara and tripped her backwards, hands locked to take her weight and cushion her fall to the deck. It caught the gorgeous blonde completely by surprise and by the time she’d changed tack from seduction to defence it was far too late. She was somehow lying face up on top of Alex, which was no bad thing she had to admit, but her arms were trapped above her head in a full nelson while their legs were twisted together in a way that gave the DEO agent all the leverage. More importantly one of Alex’s thighs had slid between both of hers and was now pressed tight against her crotch which was causing Sara no small amount of… distraction. Alex’s lips were right beside her ear and Sara shivered at the warm breath tickling her skin.

“Think your skill needs a top up.” Alex whispered.

There was a rustle of fabric from behind them and they both looked up to see Kara leaning against the doorframe and grinning. “Now this looks like a perfectly innocent, perfectly normal everyday thing to be doing between friends… even if those friends are well aware of what the other looks like naked.”

Alex tried, she really did, but she couldn’t quite manage to prevent the blush from spreading over her cheeks as she released the hold. Sara, of course, was a bit more direct and twisted off the DEO agent to lie beside her, one arm propping her head up while her hair dipped over her left shoulder to almost brush Alex’s face. “Got to be ready for anything life throws at you. Talking of which, is there something we can do for you?”

Kara noticed the ‘we’ but decided to ignore it for the time being. “Just wondering if there’s any sign of the next mission.”

“Nothing yet, we’ll be sure to let you know when something comes up though.” Sara replied wondering where, exactly, Alex had been taking things and eager to get back to discovering the answer to that question.

At that precise moment a chime rang out and Gideon cut in. “We’re receiving a communication from Agent Sharpe.”

“About time.” Sara muttered. “Okay Gideon, I’ll take it in the office. Uh…” She looked from Kara to Alex and they both nodded understanding. 

“It’s okay, we’ve got this covered.” Alex reassured her, pushing herself back to her feet and heading for the door with her sister. Sara couldn’t help but watch them both until they were out of sight before shaking herself back to reality and picking up what she hoped would be a relatively friendly call from the Time Bureau.

"Ava, what a surprise!" Sara said with a forced cheer that verged on patronising.

"I very much doubt that Ms Lance."

"Why do you say that 'Agent Sharpe'" Sara replied just about managing to keep from rolling her eyes at the formality.

"You know why."

"Enlighten me." 

Ava sighed and Sara couldn't help but let the smallest of small grins flit across her face at getting under the agent's skin. 

"You and your team have been tackling anachronisms throughout history in a manner that's... unlike your normal approach as you haven't left chaos in your wake. I'd very much like to know how."

"First of all, rude." Sara said, enjoying the game enormously. "Second of all we've just been doing what we do. Not our fault if we do it faster than the Time Bureau."

Ava paused, visibly irritated now. "In that case you wouldn't mind if I paid you a visit to check that's true?"

"You're calling me a liar now?"

"How about we go with: ‘to make sure it’s accurate’?"

Sara pretended to consider the request while counting slowly to five in her head. "Okay, come on over. But if an anachronism pops up I'll have to ask you to leave, don't want to risk you getting in the way.”

A glowing white doorway popped open on the bridge and Ava stepped through, the Time Bureau visible on the other side of the time portal. True to form the moment she was past the threshold the portal vanished and both women noticeably relaxed.

"Okay, now that we're off the record do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"Still not sure what you mean by that."

"Oh come on Sara, we both know that the Legends are never this... clinical when you're working in the field. If you were this neat the Time Bureau would never have been created in the first place!"

Sara shrugged. "True, but we do occasionally learn from our mistakes you know."

Ava opened her mouth to reply then paused, considering her experience with the Legends. “Alright, that's fair. So what, exactly, have you learnt?”

"Well we thought we'd take a page from your playbook. Approach things a little more methodically and plan ahead."

"Plan ahead?"

"Yep."

"The Legends? Plan ahead?"

"You do remember we have a brig, right?" Sara asked playfully and Ava just shrugged the threat off.

"There's got to be more to it than that."

"Well we did recruit some extra help while we were short-handed."

Ava's head came around like a shark sensing blood in the water and she smiled. "Can I meet them?"

"Sure, they're down in the lab." Ava's smile flickered and faded away, surprise etched on her face at the lack of protest. Sara cheerfully lead her through the Waverider and keyed open the lab door. Ava walked through and stopped dead when she saw the two figures working away at the console.

A brunette with short hair and glasses was working the keyboard and concentrating hard on the screen. From what Ava could see she was in good shape but the baggy sweatshirt and long, flowing skirt made it difficult to tell much more than that. 

Standing behind the brunette was the reason Ava had stopped so quickly Sara had almost walked into her. A figure clad in black and red, clearly female with a matching cape and domino mask she made a striking first impression. However more than that was hard to make out as she was vibrating so quickly her outline was blurred. Red eyes gleamed through the mask as she turned to look curiously at the newcomer.

"Ava Sharpe, meet Proxy and Speedy." Sara said with a theatrical flourish while improvising at top speed.

"Speedy?" Ava asked, confused. She'd reviewed the files on all of the Legends known acquaintances and she was absolutely certain this wasn't Thea Queen.

"A temporary name for a temporary job." The voice... echoed strangely, a mix of harmonics all overlaid into a bored, cynical tone. "When traveling through history it pays to be careful."

"That's... very sensible." Ava managed. "Uh, and you were Proxy?"

The brunette barely looked up, "Codename. Captain Lance thought it'd be a good idea to preserve my anonymity while I upgraded Gideon."

"You're upgrading an AI created by the Time Masters?"

"Yes and it's a tricky job so I'd appreciate some peace and quiet. Here, type this in please." Proxy handed a sheet of dense text to Speedy and in a blur of fingers on keys the data was in the system.

"I.. yes, of course. Uh, sorry. Nice to meet you both." Ava said, backing for the door. The moment they were alone in the corridor she turned wide-eyed to Sara.

"Where did you find them?"

"Around."

"Around?"

"Timeship, remember? We needed some help to figure out where to go next and some extra muscle. Those two fit the bill perfectly."

"But... she's a speedster! And I've only heard of one speedster with glowing red eyes and he was bad news!"

"Well you said it yourself, she's a she, not a he."

"How sure are you of that?"

Sara quirked an eyebrow and Ava cut her off before she could reply. "No, I don't mean if you've checked personally. But Eobard Thawne had the technology to change his appearance, are you absolutely sure that..."

"Yes. But if it makes you feel any better Proxy is almost finished and I can set them both back where they came from once she is."

"I... it would, yes."

"Though that'll leave us short-handed again."

"Well... maybe we can help there." Ava said slowly. "Director Bennett assigned me to investigate what was going on but he also said..."

"Yes?" Sara prompted, fairly sure she knew what was coming.

"He said that if the Legends had, in his words, become competent, then I was authorised to offer you a partnership with the Time Bureau. We'd work together, combine resources and both be available to help the other if things got, uh, complicated."

"Two conditions." Sara said after pretending to consider the 'surprise' offer. "One, if it's our mission any Time Bureau assistance works for us. We're still in charge."

"Agreed."

"And two... we need a full time partner on board to help us track down anachronisms and figure out strategy, not to mention coordinate with the Bureau. Gideon's pretty good, especially with the new upgrades, but with the professor gone..."

"I wasn't aware he did much of your strategising?"

"You'd be surprised." Sara lied.

"Anyone in particular you had in mind?"

"Well... you, actually."

"Me?"

"We work well together, you know the crew and I can put you in the field without worrying about you."

Despite herself and for the first time in years Ava Sharpe blushed. "I'd have to clear that with Director Bennett but I think he'll be agreeable."

"Great, let me know when he approves it and we'll get a bunk ready for you." Sara extended a hand and after a moment Ava shook it before quickly opening a portal back to the Bureau and leaving the Waverider before Sara could see the happy smile on her face.

"Well that worked!" Sara announced as she re-entered the lab. "Time Bureau playing nice, an extra hand on board and not a hint of suspicion as to how we managed it. Thank you both for an amazing job."

'Speedy' stopped vibrating and Kara's familiar features came back into focus. Alex groaned, reached up and pulled the glasses from her face, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

"How do you put up with wearing those things all day?" She grumbled in Kara's direction. "Twenty minutes and my head's ready to explode."

“If you will replicate prescription lenses you’re not used to...”

"Talking of exploding..." Sara cut in, glaring at Kara. "You might have warned me you were going to do your best Thawne impression! Damn near threw a knife at you when we walked in! Where did you learn to do that anyway? Barry?"

"No, but I saw Thawne do something like it when he was trying to cut out my heart for the Nazi me and thought it might be useful so I gave it a go."

"Just like that, on your own, no help or training?"

“Yep."

“And the red eyes?”

“You said it looked cool!” Kara replied, trying and failing to keep an evil smirk from her face.

"Supergirl, remember?" Alex put in emphasising the ‘Super’ and Sara held up her hands in surrender. 

"Okay, okay, I'll just add it to the list of awesome stuff you can do. Wait a minute... if Barry didn't show you how to do that does he know you can?"

"Uh... I doubt it, why?"

"Want to pay off your debt for scaring the crap out of me?"

"Sure."

"Next time you see Barry sneak up behind him and do that. Red eyes and all. And tell me, no, record his reaction!"

Kara laughed. "Okay, but I'm telling him it was your idea!"

"Please do, I still haven't forgiven him for eating the entire ice cream selection at the rehearsal dinner."

"Wait, there was ice cream at the rehearsal dinner?"

"Not after Barry got done, no. Guess he was nervous.”

"Oh he's a dead man." Kara promised and Alex stepped in, putting a hand on her sister's shoulder to try and prevent a dessert-related murder.

"Talking about getting done, I think it's probably time we were getting back."

"I was afraid you were going to say that." Sara said sadly. "You're sure I can't convince you to stick around for another two, three years?"

"Not this time, sorry." Kara replied though she, too, looked disappointed to be leaving. "But hang on to that portal thingy, we're only a call away if you need us."

"Besides," Alex put in with a grin. "you still need to come over and meet Lena, remember?"

Kara's apartment, National City, 2017, Earth 38

As the dimensional portal slurped closed behind her Sara took in the sight of the Danvers sisters dressed to impress and couldn't help but stare. Alex wore a dark blue dress that looped up delicately over both shoulders but dove dangerously low both front and back before hugging her hips and legs until it ended almost at the floor. Kara wore red but the dress made Sara's brain hurt. Technically it was quite conservative with a high collar, full length sleeves and while the hem stopped mid-thigh it was hardly a daring cut. But it wasn't a solid fabric with thin slits scattered seemingly at random across Kara's body giving brief, barely-there glimpses of the skin beneath it. A slightly larger slit between her breasts did something similar for her cleavage and Sara decided it was one of the more evil fashion statements she'd seen in recent years.

"And I was worried about being overdressed..." she said with a wry grin. 

"Oh I think you hit the mark nicely." Alex replied running an appreciative eye over the simple low cut, high hemmed black dress. "Besides we're both just window dressing here anyway. Get Kara and Lena in the same room and that's that as far as the rest of the world existing is concerned."

"For the last time..." Kara started but broke off as there was a knock on the door. Immediately she broke away from her sister and the assassin to go answer it trying very hard not to run as she did so.

"See what I mean?" Alex murmured to Sara.

For a moment Sara wondered if Kara was going to be so excited to see her... friend... that she'd just rip the front door off its hinges. There was the faintest of groans from the handle but everything stayed intact as she swung it aside to reveal a gorgeous raven-haired woman whose face lit up like the sun at the sight of Kara.

"Lena, glad you could come!" Kara said a little too quickly, hugging the other woman. 

"You asked, of course I came." Lena replied with a slightly suggestive tone that seemed to bounce right off Kara but set off several bells in Sara's head.

Kara quickly ushered her friend into the apartment, helping her out of the plum-coloured coat as she did so. Underneath a slinky black dress tailored to within an inch of its life showed off curves that had Sara debating, just for a moment, if she could swoop in and seduce Lena out from under Kara's nose without getting punted into the sun. It was almost worth the risk...

"Lena, this is Sara. She, uh, works with Alex at the FBI." Kara covered suddenly realising they hadn't discussed how to explain Sara's backstory without mentioning the words "time travelling assassin." Sara and Lena shook hands, both surprised at the strength in the others' grip. 

"Another FBI agent?" Lena said with an amused glance over her shoulder at Kara. "Exactly what clubs are you hanging around in?"

"Oh, oh no, nothing like that! Uh, we met through work, well, I mean through Alex's work, while I was looking for some information on a story."

Sara, realising that Kara was likely to keep on babbling until Lena knew everything about everyone that had ever worn a mask on Earth 1, stepped in. "All publicly available of course, I just helped her cut through the noise." She chuckled as if reliving the scene. "Truth be told I didn't even know they were related until a week later when I mentioned to Alex I'd been grilled by a ridiculously hot reporter and we need to add training for that sort of thing to the schedule. On reflection mentioning it when we were in the middle of hand to hand sparing wasn’t the best idea!”

Lena laughed but Sara caught the flicker in her eyes at the mention of someone else finding Kara attractive. Concern and maybe, just maybe, a bit of possessiveness she thought to herself. Well that was a good start. To Sara's surprise though rather than change the subject Lena joined in the ribbing.

"I know what you mean. The first time I ever met Kara she was tagging along with a rather famous Daily Planet reporter. Clearly nervous, clearly very inexperienced... I have to admit my first instinct was she was there just to distract me in the hope I'd let something slip."

Alex cast a quick look in Kara's direction and barely managed to keep a straight face. Her little sisters eyes were wide as dinner plates, her cheeks a bright red and while she probably didn't know it she was licking her lips like a starving woman presented with an all you could eat buffet. Lena started to turn and Kara, realising in the nick of time the effect the conversation had had on her, spun away to put Lena's coat up on the rack by the door. It bought her just long enough to get her face under control and they all moved to the couches to relax.

"So how did you get to the FBI?" Lena asked Sara after maybe twenty minutes of getting to know you chit chat. Alex and Kara traded worried glances behind Lena's back but they needn't have been concerned.

"The long and interesting way round." Sara replied with a wry smile. "Involves two shipwrecks, handful of gunshot wounds, some experimental chemistry, a couple of stabbings and some very poor decisions. Oh, and showing a lot of men who’s boss. Once it's all declassified I should probably write a book, not that anyone would believe it!"

"Speaking as someone with clearance to that information, they absolutely won't." Alex confirmed. "Though the movie rights would probably make a decent retirement fund."

"Well if you do decide to tell all, let me know. CatCo might make a good home for that story." Lena said and Sara quirked an eyebrow. She knew the name as the company Kara worked for but what did Lena have to do with that?

"Oh, sorry, I didn't tell you." Alex said with a wicked grin that, thankfully for her, neither Lena or Kara caught. "Lena bought CatCo a few months back."

"Well it was either that or see a truly odious competitor turn it into his very own propaganda machine." Lena replied with a satisfied smirk. "Besides it gave me a chance to work with my best friend, how could I turn that down?"

Kara blushed and stammered happily while Sara did her utmost not to laugh. Lena had bought an entire company just to work with Kara? And Kara still didn't think that...

Sara brought a hand to her hip and tapped inconspicuously at a small, hard spot in the lining of the dress. Immediately her phone started ringing from the small handbag she'd left on the kitchen table.

"Oh, sorry, excuse me for a sec?" She said, getting up to answer it. After making a show of talking to a non-existent caller she hung up and turned to the small group. "Alex, can I borrow you for a minute? Work stuff." she explained to the 'civilians' present.

Once they were out in the corridor Sara pulled a twenty dollar note from between the phone and its case and offered it to Alex.

"And this is?"

"You win the bet."

"You didn't take the bet!"

"I know but when you're THAT right there should be a reward."

Alex paused then plucked the bill from Sara's fingers and, throwing caution to the wind, made a show of tucking it away in her cleavage. To Sara's credit she barely drooled at all.

"Right, now that's out the way let's get back in and enjoy the show." Sara said with a slight shake of her head to clear the cobwebs of lust. "If I had to judge much more of that I was going to jump her myself."

"Yeah, it gets a little much at... wait, by “her” you do mean Lena right?"

"Oh, of course, absolutely. Definitely Lena, naturally.”

Alex eyed Sara suspiciously then threw her a wicked grin. "So double or nothing for whoever gets them to admit it?"

"You're on!"

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a little bit 'show your working' but in case anyone's wondering all of the time travel bits here are based on real world events or myths. So:
> 
> London, June 1968: Free Concert in Hyde Park (and yes, this one was picked because Tyrannosaurus Rex were genuinely on the bill.
> 
> Washington, August 1925: Sadly there really was a KKK march in Washington in August 1925.
> 
> Starling City, January 2012: By far the most important one otherwise there's no Arrowverse! ;-)
> 
> Devils Bridge, Wales: Based on a legend very close to where I grew up and the bridge is still standing today. Seriously folks, if you're looking for cool myths to base a story on just dive into Welsh history. You'd be amazed what's waiting there that no-one else has really taken advantage of.


End file.
